Two Cops One Donut
We were asked “what exactly is the point of this show?”Answer: social media is an underutilized tool by police. Not just police, but firefighters, DA’s, nurses, military, ambulance, teachers; front liners. This show is designed to reveal the full potential of true communication through long discussion format. This will give a voice to these professions that often go unheard from those that do it. Furthermore, it’s designed to show authentic and genuine response; rather than the tiresome “look, cops petting puppies” approach. We are avoiding the sound bite narrative so the first responders and those associated can give fully articulated thought. The idea is the viewers both inside and outside these career fields can gain realistic and genuine perspective to make informed opinions on the content. Overall folks, we want to earn your respect, help create the change you want and need together through all channels of the criminal justice system and those that directly impact it. This comes from the heart with nothing but positive intentions. That is what this show is about. Disclaimer: The views shared by this podcast, the hosts, and/or the guests do not in anyway reflect their employer or the policies of their employer. Any views shared or content of this podcast is of their opinion and not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything. 2 Cops 1 Donut is not responsible and does not verify for accuracy any of the information contained in the podcast series available for listening on this site or for watching shared on this site or others. The primary purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services.
Two Cops One Donut
Lenny Nebretski: How Police Tech Saves Lives!
When Lenny Nebretski began his career with the New Jersey State Police in 1993, detectives tracked organized crime connections with yarn on corkboards and case files thick as phone books. Today, as a leader in law enforcement technology, he's helping transform policing with solutions that turn hours of investigation into seconds of analysis.
This fascinating conversation tracks the evolution of police work through Lenny's unique perspective – from his early days as a road trooper patrolling the "city on wheels" of the New Jersey Turnpike, to specialized work in organized crime intelligence, to building real-time crime centers that give officers critical information before they arrive on scene.
Lenny shares gripping stories from his investigations into loan shark operations tied to the Gambino crime family, offering a rare glimpse into the methodical detective work required before the digital age. The transition to his current role in the private sector highlights how former officers are bringing their field experience to technology development, creating tools specifically designed for the unique challenges of modern policing.
The discussion explores how Real-Time Crime Centers and a Peregrine integrated data platform are serving as force multipliers for departments struggling with recruitment and retention, allowing them to accomplish more with fewer resources. Particularly compelling is the examination of how these technologies must balance powerful capabilities with robust privacy protections and civil liberties safeguards.
Whether you're in law enforcement, interested in criminal justice technology, or simply fascinated by the intersection of policing and innovation, this episode offers valuable insights into how modern tools are helping officers serve their communities more effectively while maintaining the human connections that remain at the core of good policing.
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Disclaimer Welcome to Two Cops One Donut podcast. The views and opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Two Cops One Donut, its host or affiliates. The podcast is intended for entertainment and informational purposes only. We do not endorse any guests' opinions or actions discussed during the show. Any content provided by guests is of their own volition and listeners are encouraged to form their own opinions. Furthermore, some content is graphic and has harsh language. Viewer discretion advised. And Thank you for listening. All right, welcome back to Cops One Donut. I am your host, eric Levine, and with me today is my co-host. That's usually a co-host on live streams, but today we're in studio for the first time doing a tandem with our friend Lenny Nebretsky. Did I say that correctly, nebretsky? Palny Nebretsky. Did I say that correctly, nebretsky?
Speaker 1:pal Nebretsky I always put the R in the wrong place.
Speaker 2:You're not the only one that does that.
Speaker 1:It's Polish, so we'll just go with that. 100%, 100% right. I'm still going to say yes, fair enough.
Speaker 2:How's it going, buddy?
Speaker 1:It's going great time coming. Oh my God, we've been talking about this?
Speaker 2:for what?
Speaker 1:18 months, two years, yeah, at least, and we finally made it come together, banning. We've been talking about the same concept of us coming in and tag-teaming our guests. So prepare, you're about to get tag-teamed by a 300-pound country boy.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm glad I had a big lunch today, going to need those dollars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been 30 minutes prior right, you can swim. Okay, fair enough. Today we're going to be talking about Lenny's career in law enforcement, what led up to that and what he specialized in out there, I believe, new Jersey State Trooper, right yeah so yeah, the first agency I worked with was New Jersey State.
Speaker 2:Troopers, right, yeah. So yeah, the first agency I worked with was New Jersey State.
Speaker 1:Troopers Okay, yeah, so State Troopers. So if you guys are listening to this, don't expect too much excitement except writing tickets.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, Right out from the gate he's getting at me right after he's right out of the gate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean somebody's got to be a road pirate, apparently, so all right. Well, with that, sir, let's.
Speaker 2:But you left off to the other part too. What's the other part? Albuquerque Police Department pal. So I was state police right, and then I went and worked for a major metropolitan police department, so you can't leave that out either.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. Okay, so you went to Albuquerque, which was the punchline for everything on Looney Tunes. Oh, my God turn yes, turn at albuquerque, remember, so. Yeah, that's going to go over so many people's heads when they listen to this.
Speaker 2:I cannot wait yeah, it's like when I'm at work and I work with a bunch of people who are like in their 20s and 30s and I make the reference to right turn at albuquerque, they look at me like you make right turns yeah yeah, love it.
Speaker 3:how many uh references do you get for shows like breaking bad all the time, bro and bro?
Speaker 2:And I lean right in. Man, you think the show is good. Come pay me a visit. Come to Albuquerque and I'll take you on the real Breaking Bad tour. And come hungry and you will leave happy.
Speaker 1:Is it out of Albuquerque? Is that what the show was? I knew it was Arizona, I just didn't know it was Albuquerque.
Speaker 2:Well, actually no, it would be New Mexico.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sorry, I'm an idiot. I said Arizona. I meant New. Mexico.
Speaker 3:Eric did not have lunch today.
Speaker 1:I did not. I had a bag of protein chips.
Speaker 2:You're looking fit, pal. I don't know what you're doing in the gym.
Speaker 1:You're doing something right. Swimming, that's it. I have not been working out, just swimming. Yeah, 30 minutes a day day. He swims with a leash. Yeah, I do swim on a leash. I showed him we were walking in. I I got this new swimming thing where I my pool is about 11 yards long. It's not long by any means, but it's a pain in the ass to swim back and forth right, because I don't know how to do the the flippy thing in the water and push off the wall. I can't do all that, so I wanted to get one of those machines that blow a current at you in the water so you can swim against the current.
Speaker 2:Hold your back.
Speaker 1:Well, have you seen how much those cost Holy cow pal.
Speaker 2:I'm a humble public servant. I can't afford that.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah. So I looked at that and I was like, well, that's not in the budget, so how else am I going to do this? And I found the pool dog leash that you just tie to your hip and anchor it down. It works. I swim for 30 minutes, I don't have to lift my head above the water. I got me a lap snorkel. I don't know if you've ever seen those. It's like a snorkel that goes straight over your forehead. Oh no kidding, just in a resting position.
Speaker 3:I've got to ask do you have a safe button or a help, Some type a?
Speaker 1:safe word that you can yell if you get into trouble. No, no, no, if I go down, I go down with my boots, so speaking of swimming. Okay to plug the navy seal yeah, for sure, right, so like again we were.
Speaker 2:As we were walking in here, we were talking about swimming and everything. I'm a I'm a former triathlete, so I used to like to swim a whole bunch, and so, on august 16th 2025, the navy seal foundation is having the New York City SEAL swim.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So it's a little too close for me to get in and qualify and get in this event, but one great event to support. What an, what an awesome foundation. Navy SEAL Foundation does amazing work, right? But, um, now I'm going to start challenging my teammates. Like, we got a year right. We got a year to qualify, we got a year to train, let's get ready and let's go crush it. 20, 26.
Speaker 1:Okay, and you said it's a three mile swim.
Speaker 2:Well, yep, to qualify, you have to be able to a three mile open water swim. Can you kind of give an example of people wanted to support that, what it goes to, how does it help the I really don't want to misrepresent anything, so what I'll do is I'll say is like if you go to NavySealFoundationorg, you'll get the specifics there, okay, I like it.
Speaker 1:That's one thing that is a problem for me. Learning on the swimming side is I'm tethered, so I'm trying to use my Apple Watch. It doesn't really give you an accurate distance on how far you swam, so I have no idea. I swim for 30 minutes, really slow. It's not like my average heart rate's like 145, so I'm just trying to keep a pace that I know I could go 30 45 minutes and can you do bilateral breathing?
Speaker 2:breathe to both sides? Yeah yeah that's the game changer. That'll, that'll.
Speaker 1:That's what keep you swimming in a straight line all day long oh yeah, I did notice that because when I was, I was really good at swimming. In high school. I wasn't a high school swimmer.
Speaker 2:You were built like a swimmer.
Speaker 1:But I liked it. And actually we had a pool, like most high schools don't have that anymore. So we had a pool and I learned how to do all of the different styles there. But if you don't use it, you definitely lose it, oh for sure. So when I was trying to do them all again, I was like, well, freestyle, I'm going to go with. First, trying to get the breathing down on that alone was a nightmare as I was trying to figure it out again. And finally I figured it out and I was only going to my right side, just because I wanted to be consistent. You wanted to breathe underwater, right, yes, yes. And so I went with the the right side. And then, as I got more comfortable, I started to change it up and I was like all right, I'm gonna do a down and back on the right side, a down and back on the left side to get more comfortable, and now I can do the, the bilateral. Yeah. So it does help a lot.
Speaker 2:I was never like, as I was triathlete and so like, the swim was always something that, like I just had to get through so I could get on a bike. And I was. I was always a good cyclist and a good runner, so, like I, the swim to me was the one obstacle I had to get through so I could get yeah get back into the hunt. Um man, I'll tell you like um now, in retrospect, I wish I'd spent more time swimming, because it's just great for your body right, it's an awesome workout like low impact.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, it's a really good workout yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3:I love it. I was, uh, I was built for cannonballs off the right, yeah, yeah, I could see that, so somewhere out there.
Speaker 2:You know, just like one of those, you ever see those like little floating docks and like when a kid sits on the edge and somebody lands on it and they go flying in the air right, those are awesome somewhere there's a five-year-old waiting for you to land yes.
Speaker 1:Um, all right, lenny, I want to know. There's a lot of draws to getting into law enforcement or life of service, military, whatever it is. Yeah, and everybody's story is it is unique. Yeah, but it's funny that there's some common themes, like, for me, I tell people the reason. Everybody thinks I got into law enforcement because my dad was a cop. That's not why I got in.
Speaker 2:I never knew that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he retired from the agency that I'm currently at and it was a factor. I don't want to act like it wasn't a factor. It was a factor in there, but that wasn't the big draw for me. The big draw for me was, as a kid, seeing, at family reunions and stuff like that, who did everybody gravitate to, who had the respect of the family. And so for me it was seeing your, your grandma, my grandfather was a firefighter and you know I had my cousin was a state trooper in Michigan and I had a couple cousins that were Army and military people, a couple Marines.
Speaker 1:Those were who everybody gravitated to every single time. And I'm like, oh shit, I want that respect Not to be in the limelight but to make my family proud. And that was the only way to make your family proud that I was seeing was that's where you get the respect. So I was like, okay, cool, that was a big draw for me. And then I had a bad experience with some cops as, like a 12-year-old, they came down the street, saw me playing basketball on the street with my friends, knocked my hoop down, stabbed my basketball, said we told you kids to stop playing basketball on the street.
Speaker 2:That's so sad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I wasn't who they were talking about. I lived on a dead-end street so there's no through traffic ever, right? So there was no. I think he had messed with some other kids on another street that was close by and just confused us, right? So in that I was not happy with police, I did not like police, I see why. And my dad was a cop down here in Texas, so I called him and I was like I hate cops. Like I was like you're cool, dad, but these cops suck, and you know. And he's like well, you can either be a part of the problem and part of the solution, and so that kind of stuck with me and I wasn't hearing it at that time.
Speaker 2:Isn't that what we do as dads? Right we ask the right questions.
Speaker 1:And so now, look you know, looking back, that was a big event for me and his words stuck with me, and that's what I'm getting to when I ask you this question. What were the draws? I know it's probably more than one factor, but what got you into a life of service?
Speaker 2:Wow. And so like I think, like a lot of people, like it was all things that kind of came together at one time, right. And so for me, like when I first got out of high school, I didn't have a whole lot of options. I really wanted to go to college and just family financial situation. It just wasn't an option for me, so I ended up going to night school. I'm actually a DeVry Technology graduate and so like this is a long, long time ago, long time ago.
Speaker 1:I never heard of anybody that actually graduated from DeVry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually graduated from DeVry because that's like what I could afford and I just I needed something. I needed like a vocation that I could make a decent living at. I had been like an auto mechanic so I knew how to fix things Like I guess that's like a skill I've always had is like I can look at stuff and kind of figure out how it works and fix it real easy. So I'm like I should do that with computers. So I went to DeVry. I went, you know, I went nonstop for three years at night so I could graduate, get into like private sector. I'm out there. This is a long time ago. So I'm out there, I'm what they call a field technician, right, and I'm working on computers and customer sites.
Speaker 2:And very quickly I realized like man, this is not the job for me, Right Like it's just um there's no reward in it.
Speaker 2:Like you know, when you're working for like a private sector company, like something like that, it just the rewards are different than when you're in a position where you're serving and at the same time, uh, I had a really good friend to say he was my hunting buddy, like we would hunt together, you know, every week and he's just a super great guy. Joe galetta love him to this day. Um, his brother was a new jersey state trooper. So, joe, joe applied for and went into the academy, 102nd class graduate. He graduates state police academy and he comes out and like he cannot stop talking about how great his life is and the work that he gets to do and the things that he gets to do. And I'm like I'm listening to all this and I'm like he really likes his job and he gets a lot of satisfaction out of what he does. And I'm going to work every day and I'm not happy, like this is not really what I wanted to do. So I got into the process.
Speaker 2:So, like in New Jersey, like if you want to be a New Jersey state trooper back then it was a pretty arduous process, like I remember, like the the first step in that process is like a written examination. So I show up at one of the places where they're having a written examination and like there's literally 15,000 people that queued up outside an auditorium waiting to get in and take a written test, and like there are troopers who are just totally squared away, I mean like in shape, looking good, like you know, great constructive force, and like I'm like this is for me, like this is for me. I guess it is what I want to do. And, like you know, we all, we're always like, okay, this is what I want to do. And like it doesn't always go as smoothly as you hope, right. And so, like I go through all the process, right, make, didn't make it through the first time, came back, tried a second time, got through, got put into a class.
Speaker 2:I got put into the 113th class and we're one of those classes in New Jersey history where, like the class mustered up and we were ready to go to the academy and, for whatever reason, the budget and state of New Jersey at that time changed and our whole class got put on hold. So for like three and a half years we kind of sat in limbo. So I, you know, I just okay, I'm on hold, like I'm going to, this is what I want to do. So I've got to figure out what I'm going to do in my life until we get ready to go to the academy, which was just kind of like a never ending story. But we're all waiting.
Speaker 2:So I went to New York. I work for an advertising agency in New York. I ran like a technology, like a software programming function for this marketing company, but I could just tell like it just wasn't what I wanted to be doing, like it's just didn't have the same level of fulfillment that I was looking for. You know and I look back at my life, eric like some things happen for a reason.
Speaker 2:I think I'm like that person like things happen for a reason in my life, like going to that company, uh, in New York, really wasn't kind of on my radar. But then like I'm there for a couple years and then I meet these people in the office and I meet this one person in the office who's just like the most beautiful, dynamic human I've ever met in my life and she has like to this day takes my breath away. And so like I guess it was like going to work for that company in New York was a pit stop on the journey that I'm on. But like in that pit stop I met, I met the love of my life and so that's where I met my wife and we've been together 31 years. So I think like that was part of my journey, like I was supposed to be there. Thankfully it's at one point like the class musters up.
Speaker 2:We go to the state police Academy 21 weeks at Seagirt, just another sunny day on the beach in Seagirt, and it was just, I felt, so incredibly fortunate to like make it through training to become a New Jersey state trooper and to serve. Like it was just like I remember walking across that stage on January 15th 1993, two high balls in a in a in a left face and the first thing the Sergeant says at the other side of the job, the other side of the stage, is that you come across and you got your badge in your hand. He says good job, troop. Like man like to this day I think about that, I still get I still get like chills about like how great that was to be like. And he says good job, first time anybody ever called me trooper.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's what I was going to say. 21 weeks and then, all of a sudden, it's just like you know, graduating bootcamp, that's what I was just going to refer to.
Speaker 3:You know, in the marine corps they they treat you like a bag nasty oh yeah, for the entire time. Until that, that second to final day, they're handing you the eagle globe and anchor symbol, badge symbolization yeah, right, and they say marine. And I don't care how badass you are, I don't care what you've gone through in your life, you break down like a five-year-old. It's just because it's natural. You know what I'm saying. You've worked so hard to get to that point. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Because it means something. That's the thing. One of the problems that I'm seeing in law enforcement these days is people are getting into this career field and it's not a career for them. They know that it's a stepping stone for other stuff, that they just passing time to me, and I find that incredibly odd.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so it's just, it's a, it's a different lifestyle, it's a different level of commitment. Again, like you know, I'm so proud to this day to be in New Jersey state trooper I always be in a Jersey state trooper. I'm also so proud to have served with the Albuquerque police department, like that's all I ever really wanted to do. Like I didn't come to the state police thinking like, wow, this is going to be a stepping stone for me to go do 10 other things. And we all know, like on the, you know, once you retire there's so many opportunities for you, learn so many skills, you pick up so much experience. Like you, you're so marketable in other places.
Speaker 1:But that was never really my intention other places, but that was never really my intention. Yeah, yeah, Now in becoming a state trooper. Uh, this was in. You said 92.
Speaker 2:So I graduated January 15th 1993, 13 state police class started August 23rd 1992, probably the hottest day on the earth, right, yeah? And so for the first 90 minutes we all stood in formation in the parking lot with our luggage right. For 90 minutes, putting it down and picking it up, and putting it down and picking it up, until we could all put down our bags and pick them up at the same time.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, it's adhesion, that team adhesion that you need to get yeah, it was a unique environment. Yeah, yeah now, you actually stayed, you slept there, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so we're a residency academy to this day.
Speaker 2:We're one of the few residency academies, which is a blessing and a curse. Like it's a blessing that you get to spend so much time with your classmates and you really bond as a class, you gel as a class. Like you know you very quickly all get on the same page or you don't, and if you don't, you don't really last very long. And then like that's, that's the blessing. And then you know being up at three o'clock in the morning, you know marching around at three o'clock in the morning. You know you'll, you'll be out marching, you'll come back and they've tossed all of your bunks out. You know mattresses out on the out of the front lawn. Now you got to go clean all that stuff up. Yeah, it's good, I like it all right, cool now.
Speaker 1:you did how many years as a new jersey new New Jersey state trooper 25 years. So you did 25 years there, so that's a long career. Can you tell me your two main specialties that? You know some people? I did SWAT or I did canine or I did you know vice like what was your specialties as a trooper?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I became a state trooper and I always wanted to get into investigations. Like that was the thing that always drove me. I was always intrigued by it. Like you know, when I was working at a station as a road trooper in uniform and out there doing patrol, you know, every station had like station detectives. Like I was always really interested in what they were doing, how they were doing it, like the you know, like all the psychology behind, like interviews and stuff like that. Like I was always really interested in that. So like that was always my focus. I always wanted to get into some form of investigations.
Speaker 2:Now, when you come out of the state police academy, everybody goes on the road. Like everybody serves in uniform, general duty road trooper, right, so everybody does a stint on the the road and that's good. Like everybody comes from the same basis of you know experience, you know same experience, you know you, uh, you do similar duties. So everybody's a general duty road tripper and then typically, depending upon what assignment you'd like to go to, like as you get more and more time on, you become eligible to apply for assignments. Um, I only ever applied to be a detective and, and so I was really really, really fortunate. With about five years on, I became a detective.
Speaker 1:Okay, now what was the specific crimes that you went after as a detective? Was it sex crimes, property crimes? What was it?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so there was an opening for positions in the intelligence section. And like they don't tell you exactly what your job's going to be when you go to the intelligence section, just like, hey, like you can go to the intelligence section. So like there were detectives in the intelligence sections. There were people in ESU, electronic surveillance unit. They had other positions in the intelligence section.
Speaker 2:So I just interviewed for the intelligence section and, quite frankly, like I had a strong technical background and so I really thought, like you know, with all that, with all my experience in technology, I'm like they'll scoop me up in ESU and I'll go do what ESU started.
Speaker 2:I was okay with that, I just wanted to. I wanted to get into investigations and during the interview, this Lieutenant who was in the interview board, jimmy, like he was just awesome, like you know we, you know we did the panel interview. You know I went through that whole process and afterwards he like he pulls me aside. He's like you're coming with me, all right. And so I ended up being in the intelligence center, the intelligence central unit, and he's like they all wanted to pull you for ESU Cause obviously I had like a technical background. He's like you'll make a much better detective out on the street and I to this day I'll be incredibly thankful Like my career could have gone in an entirely different direction but, Jimmy saw something in me that he thought was really good and pulled me into the uh, the intelligence central section.
Speaker 1:Can you describe what that is for people that have never heard of that unit?
Speaker 2:Oh, so, yeah, so, um, and it's, it's all changed. This was going back in 1995, right, no, I'm sorry, 1998. So it's changed. No-transcript. Or just like DTOs, like drug trafficking organizations, as long as there was an organized crime nexus, we could collect information on that.
Speaker 1:Okay, interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, helpful.
Speaker 1:I know I like that. Well, the whole point is to educate other people on stuff they don't see. I know what it is. I just, yeah, I gotta, I gotta get it out of you to. You'll get used to the format of how I ask questions and then get clarifying questions to educate the people.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So is that AC working for you, bud? That's great, okay, just making sure so, and like again, like freezing my ass off over here Luckiest guy you've ever met.
Speaker 2:Hopefully, as I'm telling my story, you'll see what I'm talking about. Like luckiest guy I ever met, like my first, you know. So I come out of uniform, I go to be a detective, like my first assignment, like they could have sent me 90 miles to B Troop, or they could have sent me 110 miles to C Troop. I get assigned to C Troop, which is like 15 minutes from my house. Now, granted, that's where the office was.
Speaker 2:All of our work was out in the field, so we were all over the state. But like, like literally, I got stationed very the closest place to my house. So I felt incredibly fortunate. And then, like in the intelligence section, as opposed to some of the other investigative units, so like if I had gone to narco, I'd only be working drugs, if I had gone to major crimes, I'd only be working like major crimes. If I had gone to, you know, cargo theft or auto theft, like I'd be working those specific crimes. In the intelligence section, you worked everything. You could work drug trafficking, you could work, a homicide, you could work whatever, like you could work, um, you know, organized criminal groups, you, you know, um, you had the opportunity to work all of those crimes which is pretty cool I like that yeah, my whole thing from being in law enforcement.
Speaker 3:I you know, I got in just about a year after the towers got hit in 01 and uh, meaning working for law enforcement, and when I got to talk to the guys that were training me is listening to that evolution of technology, right? So you were in during that time to where technology was really starting to oh yeah, take off.
Speaker 3:You know we were going from you know, in high school I had a bag phone and a beeper. You know I did tow truck driving as one of my gigs in high school. My school actually helped me get that job. And frigging watching the technology go and law enforcement trying to do that chase, oh yeah. So and how do you feel that your agency did when the evolution of the smartphone started coming? Were they real quick to get trained up and do train the trainer and I'm talking about when we get to the phone dumps and we get to the you know do you feel that your agency always wanted to be tip of the spear and learning as the technology would rise, going after these bad guys and all the technology they were using?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so like we were always trying to stay ahead of it. But, like we all know it's, it's a challenge, like we, we always wanted to make sure, like we were one step ahead, but like technology at that time was changing so quickly that it was really kind of hard to stay up. And so I remember like being, like you know, being a monitor in a wire room and being up on a wire tap and then like, oh, what are these Nextel phones? Blah, blah, blah. What's this whole blah blah blah thing? Right, and then all of a sudden, like in a day, like all our wires went dead and like, oh, they switched to Nextels.
Speaker 1:You know what? My favorite thing to do with that was when your friends are at the store. Right, and there was no, you couldn't silence that thing, so you'd just chirp and just start making noise. Oh man, I would make the most inappropriate noises that were out there. Oh, my God Just to get your friends or we'd. I won't even go into how far we would go to make that prank work. Yeah, but it was epic. I loved that era of Nextel. And then they finally came out with the update.
Speaker 2:So it wouldn't do that anymore. But isn't that like the greatest thing about, you know, working in law enforcement is like it's such a bond between the people that you work with and the people that you love the most are the people that you prank the most? Oh for sure, Holy cow. Like I will tell you from firsthand experience, like you give a state trooper like a couple of pictures and some scotch tape and a copy machine, and they can, they are like a Picasso with who they, you know who hit whose head they can put on whatever and like, yeah, they, they can turn some, they can, they can do some art themselves.
Speaker 2:The original Photoshop the original Photoshop, which was like the scotch tape and the copier.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And that's how you knew you were loved, like if they weren't giving you a hard time you might be doing something wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you might be the dude that nobody really likes to hang out with.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So stay in that mindset for a second and go back to. You graduated the academy, you got your badge. You know a lot of states do it differently. Eventually you're issued your car and a lot of times you're not even going to be in that car because you're with your FTO and his. You know, and and going through these different phases, what were some of the, the shenanigans, if you will, that veteran troopers would do to you. That you may have, you may have passed that and did it throughout the years, cause we all have there's a ton of things that Texas does and it's probably same all over the country, because we all have there's a ton of things that Texas does and it's probably the same all over the country, but there's these little nuances that people do and some of it's really funny and it's not that mean.
Speaker 3:And some of them are really mean as well. You know we had some as well that I went through.
Speaker 1:but I'd love to hear yeah, I thought baby powder was mean. I did not like that one. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll tell you like fleet key, like fleet key on the car, like, so like you park your car, leave it running in front of the seven 11 to go in and get a cup of coffee, and you lock your car Right and you left it running, but it's locked Right, you're in there. Maybe you're in there a little too long Cause you're having a conversation with the people inside there.
Speaker 1:And then, like you come out and all of a sudden your car is nowhere to on somebody's face when they're like, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, it's just around the corner, yeah.
Speaker 1:So for those listening, if you're wondering what we're talking about when we say fleet key, all the patrol cars for certain agencies they operate off of one cut for a key. So typically an officer always has two keys and they keep one on their belt or wherever, and the other one always stays in the car because the car will stay running, because you want your computer to be up and running, you want the batteries to die, you want the if, depending on your state, you want it to be warm or you want it to be cold on the inside, but you need to be ready to go in case of an emergency at all times. So the cars always run well. If somebody has the same exact key as you on all the same vehicles, well, they can get in and out of your car and the shenanigans begin. So one of the pranks that I hated the most, that I thought was mean, and it was the baby powder. They would shove baby powder inside the AC vent Kick everything on high for when you start it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So when you start that car up it would just or talcum powder, whatever they wanted. It was baby powder when I saw it. If you're in Texas and you're sweaty when you get into the car it just turns to mud and you just can't get it out of your damn uniform, not until you wash it anyway, and it's just there and you're screwed. And I thought that was a mean one. I don't mess with people's food either.
Speaker 2:I may eat some of your food if I ask, I ask, but, uh, I'm not going to mess with your food, and so, like you know, so on midnights, like we ride two troopers to a car in midnights, and so you know back then, uh, when you would get together. For you know, for dinner on a midnight you go to like a local diner.
Speaker 1:You rode two troopers to a car. I've never seen that anywhere. Two troopers to a car Holy cow yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, like your partner on Midnight's man, I'll tell you you go through some really good things together. You go through some hard things together, but you go through them together. Yeah, but like squad. But typically it was quiet. We'd all get together at a diner and we you know everybody sit down and have like an old school squad breakfast or whatever. Yeah, finished your meal Like you didn't want to get up halfway through and come back, cause, like you know, maybe maybe you got halfway through your breakfast. You come back. That thing is gone.
Speaker 3:Salt on your pancake.
Speaker 2:No, no, I don't mess with a person's food, that's a that's a no, no for me you know, but guys and girls tight super, super tight, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And, like you know, I think back to like some of the things that just and I'll be I will forever be thankful for. I mean just like, literally, you know we had the, you know our portables, like when I first got out of portable, had no hand mic right, so you got to carry it on your belt, but then we got the ones with a little hand mic, you know, lapel mic you can just kind of click I can't tell you how many times like I'd be out on a car stop or something, and like literally all I'd have to do is just click the mic, beep, beep. Hey, can you send somebody this way? You start rolling a car this way and next thing I know I'd have you know, five of my closest friends rolling my way to come help me if I needed it.
Speaker 1:and like yep yeah they know if Lenny's calling, there's something, something's amiss, because he doesn't call for help unless he needs it. So yeah, that's it. That is the benefit that I see with troopers versus municipal cops, versus the ability to go through your academy together and stay together. It's just like a boot camp and that's why you get so close with your friends and stuff in the military.
Speaker 2:Can I tell one academy story, of course, okay. So you know, obviously you know you show up to the academy in the first day, first weeks, you don't, you don't really know which which end is up, and that's on purpose, right? Um and so, like you know, very specific rules, very specific guidelines about how you show up, what you show up with and like, in our case, shaved head right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely shaved head. You know everything down, right, I had never shaved my head before, like that was just not something I ever did, right. So like the night before I'm going to the Academy, my girlfriend at the time, who became my wife it's like she's like shaving my head Right and like I feel sorry for her to this day that she had to do this. But like she's like shaving, she's doing the best she can with the razor and apparently, like, just like behind my ear there was like this one little strand of hair, like everything was pretty tight, but then there's like this one little strand of here there behind my ear. And this guy's instructor, tim fogarty. I love that guy. He's just a mountain of a man. Like I'm standing in formation in the gym, we're getting ready to do pt, and he's he's like looking me up and down, he starts yelling at me like who shaved your head? I'm like my girlfriend, sir, when you go home on Friday, tell her she sucks and then don't come back on Monday. Thanks honey.
Speaker 1:Plot twist when you got home, she'd be like did they find the hair Got you? Good, fucker, exactly, oh, crap, yeah that. I think that's the difference between the municipal and and sheriff's departments, and stuff like. What we went through is we didn't get to, we went home every night yeah, we're home every day, but sometimes that's even more challenging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is challenging especially when you it wasn't for me. I always knew what I wanted to do, like I've been through three police academies as it is anyway, right, especially when you it wasn't for me I always knew what I wanted to do, like I've been through three police academies as it is anyway, right, that's just. And then I became an academy instructor, so you really have an insight on it. And I'm just like you're getting paid to work out, you're getting paid to be yelled at, like it. Who cares? Like, if it's your dream, that's a drop in the bucket, I, if it's your dream, that's a drop in the bucket, I don't care. So for me, not hard.
Speaker 1:And you know, the military, I think, kind of broke me of that really early. So being separated from the family and then coming home and seeing your loved one, I could see that taking a toll on some people if they're not used to that and don't have that, you know, inoculation, so to speak, of being away from their family and friends. But for me it's never. It. Was it ever in the marine corps? Maybe I could see.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a little homesick but yeah, you get homesick and everything, but we had such a good crew where I was stationed out or what I did. You can get through it together, you know, everybody was going through their own shit, so to speak, yeah, and you had people that you could talk to about it, which was great. Yeah, we're all retarded marines, so to speak jokingly. Yeah, you know, and I say what was your favorite?
Speaker 2:what was your favorite flavor?
Speaker 3:crayon. I call it great, but purple yeah I've already, so I people actually mail that to the in the mail to me. Friends on linkedin will send me those all the time, so my daughter will never run out of crayons At least the color purple, that's right.
Speaker 1:Exactly as long as they're grape, yeah. And I think there's a big difference too now with the generations. They're so used to having this readily available, right. And when we went through as our generation, we had to cure our own boredom a lot. So going through basic for me easy, like I didn't have that homesickness because I knew how to drive my brain and keep myself from dwelling, so to speak. Did I get homesick a little bit? Yeah, if I thought about it. But I think that's something that we taught ourselves as a I don't want to say a coping mechanism. That's something that we taught ourselves as a I don't want to say a coping mechanism, but the ability to push through adversity is. We had to cure boredom.
Speaker 1:I mean, I played wall ball for hours. I don't know why I did it. To me I was practicing to become the next Nolan Ryan. You know in my head Like I remember that exact thought. I'm like, all right, nolan threw a lot of baseballs. I'm like I'm just gonna take this tennis ball and just keep chucking against the wall. Yeah, practicing my infielding, right there, right. And then hours, hours, you try to tell my kids to go do something for minutes, like that's boring, I'm done backyard with a ball up on the roof yeah, oh yeah, trying to wait catching it rolling back, catching it for hours.
Speaker 3:Yup, do a little special bounce. If you had gutters. Yeah, exactly, yeah, he's like dang it. Now I got to get back.
Speaker 1:They didn't have those gutter guards that they have now. Well, rich people, I think, adam. I say that now, who's got him, this guy?
Speaker 2:so yeah, that's a quick question. So I just gotta tell you like I have so much respect for marines and what marines go through and and they're, like you know, in their boot camp, like like what did you guys do to get through? Because I mean it's a tough, tough experience. A lot of man love I went.
Speaker 3:I went through in uh in 97 and we were the first platoon on the east coast of paris island oh, wow roll through what's called the Crucible and the Crucible.
Speaker 2:No kidding.
Speaker 3:So we had Parade Magazine there Navy Marine Corps News. It was really neat and our platoon was on an insert inside of Parade Magazine, so you can see my skinny. I probably lost about 60 pounds in boot camp. Wow, rocked up solid and never lost that type of weight. I played football in high school and whatnot.
Speaker 2:Right, rocked up solid and never lost that type of weight I played football in high school and whatnot.
Speaker 3:Right Born again, hard it was. And all I had to go off of just to give you an example of where I came from before I got into that was my father was an Air Force, or he was an officer in the Air Force yeah, fighter pilot. And so I had his stories. And any time I asked my father when I was mentally preparing myself for the academy, because my recruiter wasn't really doing that I was, I was another number and he got me oh yeah, was he's like banning, you don't have to worry about it. My father was jacking with me. He's like you're gonna have these little ladies that come in at zero four hundred hours when y'all wake up and they're gonna make your beds for you and then you're, you know, they're gonna help you get dressed because you're probably gonna to be sore from PT in the day before. And he was just. He was so mad that I decided to go to the Marine Corps and I didn't want to follow his footsteps. Oh wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah he was the brainiac, I was not, so the Marine Corps was perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And man, it was a shock and I was the guy that came in and I think I covered this in one of his podcasts that I didn't know anything about it. I never watched the movie full metal jacket, I never saw platoon, I didn't. I didn't have the mental preparation. My recruiter told me go run 400 meters monday, wednesday and friday and by the time you go to boot camp two days after high school graduation you'll be good.
Speaker 3:Well, I did track, I, but I did more of a shot put in discus yeah, that makes my thing that makes a lot of sense, and when I ran 400 meters I needed a day or two because I was a freaking lineman, so I did it. I'm like man, this is great. So the first day I arrived at the airport, they have junior drill instructors come and meet you there, right. And, like I said, I've never even seen a tv show with marines all I knew is my recruiter had dressed blues and women flocked to him and I'm like there it is.
Speaker 3:You know, that's awesome, that's a squared away looking uniform. I want that, and anyway. So I get to the airport and this young Hispanic drill instructor comes up to me and starts yelling at me in the middle of a public terminal Because I'm carrying the folder that everybody knows, that these guys know to look for, and he's asking me these questions that I don't have answers to, and so I stopped him. I was like, sir, with all due respect, you don't have to yell at me.
Speaker 3:I can fucking hear you just fine, right well, he communicated with my senior drill instructor, because from there to the bus, to the bus to paris island, I was a project and every time he yelled at me I'm like hey, I'd start clapping.
Speaker 3:Hey, is there anybody else here have hearing problems? I didn't know what to expect. So when I got the platoon 2072 golf company senior drill instructor staff, Sergeant Scott got a nice phone call from the from the guy that received me, and I became a project. Matter of fact, one of my drill instructors follows me on LinkedIn. His name was staff sergeant meeks, that's hilarious to watch.
Speaker 3:My transformation of being a little turd right, of a citizen slush bag, to what I became just 13 weeks later was night and day. According to him, we all were, the whole platoon was, and we had a lot of people that didn't make it. We had a lot of people that got recycled. But for that you for the marine corps to be able to take literally anything melting pot in america and turn them into what they turned us into. Right, it's iconic man. Yes, and I owe my entire career to that. Everything I can relate to in life when it comes to discipline or leadership is united states marine corps that's awesome it was the enlisted side.
Speaker 3:You know, I always tell people I wanted to work for a living. I told my father that he hung up on me a couple of times, but yeah, it was one of the best things I've ever done.
Speaker 2:So I'm sorry. I was going to say, tell me about the sand fleas. Like I think the sand fleas in Parris Island are like iconic right. They are Like you don't have like a real Paris Island experience until you.
Speaker 3:And I don't think I caught victim to that too much.
Speaker 3:Just like if I go outside with my wife and we do yard work, she'll come back in and it looks like she has some flesh-eating disease from mosquitoes and I'm not getting bit. So they also said they're attracted to different blood types, body types. I got lucky with that. Now, where I suffered from is how pale I am, the red hair. I was the guy in a pt shirt. They had two big white stripes on the back and that's for the navy corpsman to keep an eye on me, because I could fall out in a run. I could fall out in a hump. You know, 60 pound weighted, uh, hump, and and thank god I didn't. The reason I didn't and I and I hydrated is they told me if I fell out I was going to get what's called the silver bullet.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, Sure what's a silver bullet.
Speaker 3:Well, they pull your pants down and they've got to get a core temperature to find out if they're going to need an ambulance. It's basically an eight-inch device that gets inserted rectally to get your core temperature. Brother, I did not pass out I hydrated and ate like crazy and never had an issue. So I watched people go through it and it did not look fun yeah, the, the.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to remember the point that I was going to bring up now and I just lost it I didn't mean to interrupt no, no, you're good what were we talking about? Um, oh, I know what it is now the, the transformation. So when we talk about the transformation, the brainwashing, I mean that's really, you know, resocialization sir.
Speaker 1:Yes. So the brainwashing side of the military, that is one of the benefits in a good way. There are some things that I think you know. Looking at it from the adult side, like the grownup side of me now, looking back, I'm like, oh, I see why. I see why it's 18 year olds that they go after. I understand the mechanism behind having that military machine run. You got to have it because that 18 to 25 mark is our brains aren't fully developed yet that you know. Prefrontal cortex is not done and that's where they're using that to mold us. That's why it's harder for these older military people when they come in.
Speaker 1:I was older I was 23, I think, when I came in and I had a little bit of life experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when you went in and you were the project, I went in and I was like I'm staying under the radar and I knew went in and I was like I'm staying under the radar and I knew and I knew how and I did the whole entire time and they the only reason I may have told this story before on here.
Speaker 1:I don't remember, but the only one time did I ever show up on their radar and it's because you guys know my sense of humor. We're standing in chow hall line waiting outside under the girders there and I look up and I see a big old male pigeon and two little female pigeons and there's not enough room for them to walk by each other, so they think ping pong balls bouncing off each other up there. But in my view there was only these three pigeons. There's nothing else to look at. You're just staring at the back of somebody's head right and lord help you if you move, or look around, because the drill instructors are constantly watching. So I'm sitting there and this male pigeon sees two honeys and he goes to town on both of them, just bouncing back and forth, nailing them, wow. And they're making noises and I'm like oh my.
Speaker 1:God, I lost my shit. I could not. I mean, I'm quietly laughing but my shoulders are bouncing. Everything about me is probably standing out. I got tears rolling down my face because I couldn't keep my shit together, because in my head I'm like you're not supposed to laugh. You're not supposed to laugh. You're not supposed to laugh. That shit's funny. I don't give a fuck.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:So I just I'm losing my shit. And then all of a sudden I felt it Pop Right on the neck A hat. What's so goddamn funny? And I'm like, oh shit, tell you what Levine. And he'd talk like that, real slow and in pieces. Tell you what, levine, you make me laugh. We'll call it square. I don't laugh. They all suffer. He's talking about that.
Speaker 2:No pressure at all.
Speaker 1:He goes or you can accept your punishment. I was like, fuck that, this is funny. This is funny. I don't care who you are. And this is the older person, 18-year-old. They're going to be like, oh shit, no way. Me, I'm like, I'm going to take my chances. We're going to have to push you. Think a little different as you're older.
Speaker 1:I'm like we're going to get rolled the dice. They're going to mess with us anyway and, to be honest, we're Probably three, four weeks in. You know, Air Force BMT is not that long anyway, it's like eight weeks.
Speaker 1:So I'm like all right fuck it, let's roll the dice. I was like, sir, permission to move freely. And he's like, oh, by all means, show me this production. I was like, sir, you see those pigeons up there? And he's like those pigeons right there, not these ones over here. No, no, those pigeons right there, not these ones over here. I was like, no, no, those ones right there. So he's like, oh, yeah, I got you these ones right here. You know he's playing the role. And I was like, see the big one in the middle. And he's like, yeah, yeah, what did he say? The big papa-looking motherfucker. And I was like, yeah, yeah, him. He's like, yeah, what about him? Seconds. And now I'm fingers crossed, keep doing what she was doing. And he doesn't get stage fright. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So, on cue, my boy just goes and just grabs her up with his wing, pulls her in and goes to town and I'm like, oh, thank you, jesus. And I'm like, all right, that's half the battle right there. And he's looking up. I can't see his face, all I can see is the back of his hat Right, and I see his shoulders bounce just a little Real quick and he just walks away. He doesn't say shit, he just walks away. I was like, oh shit, and so I'm not in formation really. I'm kind of in my spot still, but not really and not in formation really. I kind of in my spot still, but not really, and so I'm looking around and one of my guys goes. You won get back in formation and shut up Funniest thing ever.
Speaker 1:You didn't, you guys didn't get thrashed on nothing. Nope, he owned it and he even told me at the when we graduated cause he wasn't my instructor he waited for my class to graduate to come in and meet my wife and my parents, because they came in right and at my locker.
Speaker 1:You know he comes to your foot locker and stuff and he goes. I just want to tell your family you did a great job. He's like and your son is the first person he goes in my almost four years of doing this. It's ever broke me. I said, and I'm I'm like in my head like so much had happened. I wasn't sure what he was referring to. At that moment I was like I broke you. When did I break you? He goes the pigeons act like you don't fucking know. And I was like, oh, I was like you did laugh. He goes I lost my shit around the corner. He's like I ain't never seen anything like that. He's like I was so mad but I couldn't say shit.
Speaker 3:He's like he probably giggled each time he walked past that part of the base. Just because of that, Exactly. Oh my God, the stuff.
Speaker 1:I mean, like I said, the programming, the whole process of it. Like you were saying, I realized what was happening or I realized what happened to me, and for a lot of it I'm thankful because, like you said, the leadership and the discipline that I have is because of that Right. And then the way that I look at my life now as a cop I'm glad it didn't stick on me so hard that I didn't become a free thinker. The way that I am in police work Yep. So when I'm looking at police work, this was a long way around. But as I'm looking at police work and I start thinking about leadership and how many light years behind we are in leadership compared to what we are in the military.
Speaker 1:In the military, when we have a position, you're training the people underneath you to take your spot. You should that's how that is, you should, You're always in. The concept came from probably the Marines and the Army back in the day. If you drop in the field, I need somebody that can step up, that's ready to take my spot if I go down. We don't really carry that as much in the police realm. I think the troopersopers you're definitely more paramilitary, so it's probably more beholden in you guys to have better leadership training. I don't know I'm speaking out of my ass, but because you've got that paramilitary but like in municipal policing deputies and sheriffs together, I think we lack in leadership and the stuff that we're training. Now, when I see it, I'm like I learned that as an airman basic and all the way through it. It doesn't stop. You don't go do a leadership class.
Speaker 3:Leadership is always taught and always continues throughout your career and and and going into that and not to to, to sidebar this so much.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's sidebar.
Speaker 3:I'm all about leadership, you know, bringing the military into law enforcement. When I went to the basic police officer academy here in Texas, I expected a little bit more discipline coming from the academy coordinators and the instructors, kind of like what I received in the military Right. So the class voted me in of Sergeant of Arms. Our coordinator broke her leg in our first week of the 100th BPOA at the Tarrant County Police Academy and she elected me. You're going to be our especially out of the Marines. You're going to be our physical fitness person and I need you to help me guide these people.
Speaker 3:Uh, for, for discipline, out of here on the parade deck, we're going to teach them how to March basic right. And we're going to we're going to do Monday, wednesdays and Fridays of a good two hours of PT In the morning when we get here. Can you lead that? Yes, yes, ma'am, I can. Can I do it to where they'll be successful? You're a marine. I was never one. I'm sure you know a little bit about physical fitness. Let's do it you. You go ahead and do it. First day I'm out there, we and this is basic right from stretching get everybody ready and now we're going to go on a little truffle shuffle. Well, there's a lake out there by that and I didn't know you weren't supposed to like run around the lake. They likes to kind of composed it to the parking lot or a little running track area that we had.
Speaker 3:But I saw this big beautiful lake and let's go run there I was in my cadence and we were going and I'm teaching and I only had one or two guys and gals that were in the military and they were. They were okay, it'd been some years since they've been in. I had some older guys in there and they were doing good and I always look back. We're running next to 820, which is a big highway here Going towards the lake. There's a big kind of a dam and we're running across the top of that dam. I started looking back and this is a slow truffle shuffle run. Okay, half of my class is still coming around the corner.
Speaker 2:Wow falling out.
Speaker 3:We're a quarter to a half mile back and I'm like so I teach and we have to run in circles because we're not going to leave somebody behind right wagon wheel and then get them to run around, run around the lake and do the different things and, and, um, about 90 percent of my class went to the coordinator once I left that day and said that is pure military.
Speaker 3:We didn't sign up for the military. I don't know what that is, but all we have to do is run a mile and a half for our test. This is ridiculous, but she allowed me. I dialed it back some, but she allowed me to keep that going through at the academy and to this day, I have people from my class that still structure their lifestyles better based on what they learned from me. So that was a huge, you know, a huge thing to me and that. But I only learned it in the marine. I didn't create it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you think about those things, those like those gems that you take from that whole Academy experience. I stay with you like for the rest of your life, Like you know, I mean quite frankly. Like you know, like I fold my underwear to this day, Like they taught me back in 1992. Like, if you go in my bag, in my car, there's a can of Kiwi in my, in my, in the bag that I travel with because of you know, when I break out my shoes, if they're not right, like you know.
Speaker 3:You know, 30 plus years later I got a can of kiwi in there. I'm going to square those things away and that's that instilled discipline that a very small percentage of our united states gets to experience yeah, and I will forever be grateful for what I went through, and I know you will be yeah, you will as well.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's something that carries you on. The sad part is I'm still in, so I get to see sad, no, no. Well, it's sad because they don't have to shine their boots anymore, they don't have to iron their uniform, they don't. There's so many things that they don't have to do. The traditions and stuff that we knew are gone right. So to me that's sad. Why is it sad? Not because I think you should have to do what I had to do because it sucked and we didn't want to do it. It's because of the discipline behind it Doing the hard thing in small doses versus having to have to fix some sort of huge mess because you neglected it for so long. That's kind of what I picked up from learning how to make your bed and do all that stuff. And there is a lot to be said for the discipline to make your bed every morning Right and not, and not in the way it gets my day going yeah, versus when I don't do it Cause I I noticed I'm like I didn't really I didn't make the bed.
Speaker 2:It's that I noticed. I didn't really I didn't make the bed.
Speaker 3:That structure, yeah, life that feels comfortable, yes, the true building blocks of what takes you further into, whatever you do, even if you you get out of the Marine Corps and go work for Walmart, that structure that you learned right is going to be there for whatever you do.
Speaker 3:And holy cow, you know everything that I learned because I still do it when I work for a municipal agency in the Dallas Fort Worth area. We had the shineable boots that we, that we wore, and it was almost every night while I was a law enforcement officer there, I would spit shine them. Oh God yeah.
Speaker 3:Just that discipline that I learned from the Marine Corps. And, like you're saying, with the change and I know we all experienced it in this profession when these new generations come in and I know this goes on for years Everybody says the previous better previous and I'm sure you know my father's generation, your father, everybody's was better, we're less, and I get that.
Speaker 3:But when you actually get to physically see it in your profession or somebody and I'll give you an example and we can move on is somebody now that comes to the police Academy and I don't care what state it's in, and they put all that money into that person. They invest all that time and they were motivated. They may have gotten meritoriously promoted if they were in the military or they were looked upon highly in police academy and maybe got a special unit early off because how much they applied their self. And as soon as they get into something they don't like they quit wow, it's I'm talking throwing in the towel, they're done.
Speaker 3:It doesn't equate in their head of what all was invested into them and I've watched people get all the way through an fto program, get released and get out and get sent to a call that they were mad because they have to do pay we call, doing paper on it right, writing a report, and it just didn't fall within their thought process of they could have what we called zero three or just call noted this call right. Why did they have to do it. You know what? This is not for me. I'm out and they can just like quit that day and drop all their stuff on the desk and walk, and to me it's. That's a part of your lifestyle once you've gone that far oh yeah watch people just toss it.
Speaker 3:that was tough for a pill for me to swallow and it's happening every day.
Speaker 2:I know Like we have a saying. You know sometimes you'll see every now and again you'll see a little TFL, like on a tattoo or embroidered on somebody's shirt or something. You know we call it trooper for life. You know it's a lifestyle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I see it in society today that the the level of respect for each other and I'm not calling out any specific group of people at all on this, it's just overall generationally the level of respect has gone for each other has gone way down Right, and we see it in law enforcement especially. But then there's a lot of education that goes out that we're seeing from the law enforcement side where I'm like, well, we're screwing up too. This person got mad and felt disrespected because you just trampled their right. You're demanding ID, right, you don't have a right to their ID Right. And and now you're upset, set and your ego's getting checked a little bit because they they did something that people didn't used to do, right, they said no, challenge. They challenged you back and said, no, I'm not giving you my id. You go back to the early 80s, 70s. Nobody said that, right, you played ball.
Speaker 1:But now people, because of the internet, people have a easy way to gain access to education and they're learning their rights. They may focus on one right. They may focus okay, I have a First Amendment, right to record. I'm awesome, that's cool. But that's where this, I think that's where this. You know, when we talk about disrespect towards law enforcement. I'm like no, I don't really see that part of standing up for your rights as disrespect. I tell people I like the fact that you make your protest known. Hey, I don't agree with this. I don't think you have a right to my ID. I'm going to do it under the threat of arrest if I don't. Right.
Speaker 1:And get that clarification. If I don't give you my ID, you tell me you're going to arrest me, right? Yes, I am Okay. Well then, here's my ID. Right Now, I've got all the ammo I need for court. Yep, so I think this level of, like I said, disrespect has went up because we just generationally, it just keeps degrading. I don't know why. I can't put one thing on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a lot of times, though, like it's all about people's skill, right, and like you meet people out on the street and it's just how you approach them, how you what you say, how you say it. Sometimes so much more important about how you say something, yeah, will either elevate or diffuse a tense situation, right, and so, like I so I'm from the era in policing where, you know, there were no in-car cameras, there were no body, no body worn cameras, and like you could have a real one-on-one conversation with somebody on the side of the road, like and sometimes like a two-minute tongue, lashing about their driving habits and, uh, you know, hey, have good, you know, you know, don't do this, then get out of the way. No summons, no warning, whatever, just, you know, a quick critique of their driving skill skill had a whole lot more impact than handing them three summonses, definitely.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so like the ability to, like you know, really kind of point out somebody's lack of driving skill very, very specifically, I think would go a long way, and I think we've kind of lost a little of that.
Speaker 1:I agree. I think you're right. It's crazy to me with all the videos that we see of police screwing up with citizens screwing up. I think that's where, with the podcast, one of the things we're trying to do is this isn't a mutually exclusive issue. It isn't just citizens screwing up, it isn't just police screwing up. We're both screwing up, on both sides. But if we're not willing to come to the table and say okay and take a little ownership in what we're talking about, right, we're never going to fix any issues.
Speaker 1:That we have right and I blame this one specifically on social media is the ability to say things anonymously without any repercussions. True, and you see that occasionally. You see some of these youtubers go out there, throw their mouth around like they do on the internet and they pay the price. Right, it's socked in the mouth, right Shoot. The one dude got shot, went out there, started pressing up on a guy and got told him get back. This was like in a mall I don't know if you guys remember that video and the guy backed him up, told him get away from him and the YouTuber just kept pressing towards him, acting stupid, and the guy just pulled out a little snub nose and shot him once in the stomach and got out of there and he got self-defense. He got the claim for self-defense.
Speaker 1:When you watch the video you're like, okay, I see why and I blame social media. I think that kids, they blame Mortal Kombat when we were kids for us being violent or Ninja Turtles, but I do think there's a direct correlation in social skills with social media and not having to cure your boredness and some of the stuff that we've been talking about. I think they all correlate and I think the military helped us a lot. I think it can help young people today, especially if they don't have the structure at home, and us as law enforcement. I think oftentimes when we deal with a problem teenager, a problem, you know, young adult there's a common factor and it's there's no structure at the home.
Speaker 2:I'll say like I don't have very many regrets in my life. I've had an amazing career. I've gotten to work with some truly, truly amazing people. Like the one thing I never really got to do was I never got to serve in the military. If I have a, if I have a regret, it's probably that, um, I looked at, uh, going into the military right out of high school and, 18 years old, had a girlfriend who quickly talked me out of going to the military. I wish I had just kind of pushed through and done it, because I think it would have been a good experience for me.
Speaker 1:Well, I had to tell this to my own father. I told him because that's one of his biggest regrets that he never served, and I said I can tell you from a person that's done both. I think I feel like I've served more as a cop than I had ever served and probably ever would have served as a security forces member. No knock to security forces, it's just in what we do. We keep the base secure. Some of us go out and, you know, sweep some sort of paths and stuff like that. Yeah, you, there are odds that you could get you know into some sort of combat, if that's, if that's how you view service, if that's how you view that you served. But I've never felt like I've served people more than as a cop, a street cop especially and I've got some good wins as a detective. I've got some great things that I've helped out with as a sergeant and I'll probably say that I feel like I've I've served a lot more now as a Sergeant as well.
Speaker 2:Now you've got a lot more responsibility.
Speaker 1:Right, and I got the ability to teach and I've got the ability to make a impact on the community you know for either, whether whether it is through complaints or it is through an enforcement action, because I don't have to do the work they're doing right. I get to sit back, supervise but fill in the gaps that I see right, and filling in those gaps as part of the fun of being a supervisor absolutely, and I hear a lot of people say what you just said.
Speaker 3:I've, I've been blessed to to meet so many people around the globe, and when guys like you say that I've got to step back and say, but look how you present yourself, look at the accomplishments that you've done in life.
Speaker 3:That means a lot to me that you obviously were raised correctly. It speaks a lot of being raised and for what the State Trooper Academy did for you, because in a sense you may not be serving in the US military but you're still serving the people and when you get to go, do that and go through an outstanding program that brought you the leadership taught you about ethics teaches you how to teach others, and then when, the way you do and how you present yourself.
Speaker 3:So I don't think you lost anything by not serving, but you just got to serve in another capacity.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I appreciate it. It's important, so it capacity. Thank you, I appreciate that's important, so it's.
Speaker 3:You know, people can say and I totally understand what you say, and that's almost why I so quickly jumped to the marines is like gosh, I'm not prepared for college, I better do something. So I don't look like some wise guy out here and I need to freaking. Uh, straighten myself up. You square yourself away absolutely, and that's the way I did it. But no, I think the way your your life unfolded is definitely not a negative thank you and like.
Speaker 2:And I look at, like you know, and for me as a state trooper, like one of the things that makes me so proud to be a state trooper New Jersey state trooper is like I look at how the New Jersey state police still functions today. Like if you go on New Jersey state police social media you'll see Colonel Pat Callahan doing a run with a, an academy class that's about to graduate. You know he's the leader of the organization. He's out there doing PT with them on the beach and he's setting that example. It's an awesome example of leadership right Leadership by example and like. That makes me really proud to see my organization still focused in that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Now you did Intel.
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 1:Before we go from Intel, because you probably had another range that you did at the troopers. So yeah, so you did intel. For how long?
Speaker 2:wow, um so, yeah, um so. Five years, essentially five years in uniform on the road. My last assignment on the road was the new jersey turnpike. Have you ever driven on a jersey turnpike?
Speaker 2:no it's a city on wheels, brother I've heard yeah, and so like, literally in some parts, like the new jersey turnpike is 16 lanes across holy cow, yeah, and so like it's just it's like a whole city on wheels. And it just never ceased to amaze me, like you're doing, you know you're patrolling the highways of new jersey, but like it never ceased to amaze Like how many people were coming out there just to commit crime or you know, like like just every day was like an absolute adventure. You never knew who you're going to run into, whether that's people moving drugs or guns or money up and down the turnpike, or it's people who come out there and now they're in a service area. Now there's a Donnybrook in the service area. So you was, it was a busy, busy assignment area so you was.
Speaker 1:It was a busy, busy assignment. Okay, some of these folks aren't from the north. I know what you're talking about. Play a lot of hockey growing up right. Tell them what a donny brook is. Oh dear god, donny brook is like what's?
Speaker 2:it's a. It's a public fight it's like you know, it's a fight you don't have to be invited to. It's like a fight anybody can join, right? What's it all? What's that old saying from the quiet man? Is this a private fight, or can I get in? And so like, yeah, so like you're, everybody's just able to jump in. So yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you're a fan of letter Kenny, anybody out there letter Kenny will. We'll teach you what a Donnybrook is as well, so yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, good times. But I mean, like um, when I, when I, when I worked on a turnpike, like I mean it was busy, busy, deal with people how to communicate like you know how to, how to understand very quickly, like this person is just a normal person trying to get to work every day, maybe they went a little too fast, right, hey, do me a favor slow down a little bit. This is a person that, if I'm not really careful, this person could take my life and so you get you very quickly.
Speaker 2:You learn how to talk to people, how to assess your situations very quickly, which helps you actually be a better detective.
Speaker 1:Yes. Now what I want to know is, because Intel has the potential for some of the best cases. Oh, absolutely, if you guys are listening, intel to me is the top dog. It's actually where I'm at now. I'm in a part of tactical intelligence, like that's what I do with the real time crime center stuff. You are a part of all of the big things that happen. Yeah, I mean all the major cases. You're a part of that in some form or fashion.
Speaker 2:So in that top victory wow, that's really really, really hard, but um, let me take a stab most interesting top victory, so all right so I think the one that I'm probably most proud of is because of the way it came about is, um, we did a pretty big case on a guy by the name of eddie. Well, they went by eddie the irishman, right. Um, eddie fisher. Actually, you can look them up online. You'll'll. You'll find information about Eddie Fisher online. Um, I'm really proud of that investigation in that whole case. So, um, eddie Fisher was, uh, lived in Staten Island. He was what we refer to as like an earner, like could make money. Um, through you know he, he, whether it be loan sharking, whether it be gambling, whether it be whatever, like he, you know he, could make money for organized crime. Now, he's not.
Speaker 1:He's not Italian.
Speaker 2:He doesn't have the roots that go all the way back to Italy, so he can't be like like a made man, can't be a made guy like in an organized crime family, but like the information we had is going back a ways. Now you think about, like Paul Castellano, no-transcript, and we're talking about this guy and he's like oh yeah, like an interesting story about this guy, like he ran into somebody who allegedly owed him some money. They both go down an alley and now a short time later, eddie comes out and the guy's dead in the alley. Right, eddie Fisher's story is like oh yeah, he saw me, he knew that he owed me money. He ran into the alley, took out his gun and shot himself in the head. Well, you look at the picture, like shot him, like right, like the bullet holes, like right here, straight head.
Speaker 2:But you know, they never they never indicted him. So I guess maybe that's what happened. But like, yeah, he was an interesting cat. So everybody was interested in this particular guy because, like he you know he was, um, he was an earner for the gambino crime family.
Speaker 2:The way that case started right was, literally, we got a memo from the local prosecutor's office. They had talked to this guy's guy, eddie, and eddie had like said, like hey, there's this whole, you know, organized crime scheme going on, like in Monmouth County, and he's explaining how, like there's gambling and there's loan sharking and there's people involved, there's people who are potentially at risk because they're not paying their loan shark debts. And you know now they're, you know they're at risk of being injured, they're being threatened. And so, um, me and my partner at the time, bobby Collins, like you know, we get the memo, we read it, we're like this is not a lot here, but this is really interesting. Let's, let's dig into this a little bit more.
Speaker 2:And so we do a follow up interview and so, like, we get a little more information and now we start to verify something again back then, like this is all manual, like as you're debriefing a potential source and they're telling you things about people. It's so hard to find out information who's Eddie? Who's this other guy, kenny? Like it's really really hard, very manual processes, systems, just not very effective. So we do our first couple interviews and then, like, sure enough, we identify a guy who's really he's actually in, really he's in big trouble, and I'll a guy who's really he's he's actually in, really he's in, he's in big trouble, and I'll just call him.
Speaker 1:I'll call him ishmael. What is?
Speaker 2:that right? Yeah, call me ishmael. Yeah, so I'll call him ishmael. So ishmael, all right, he was a bad, bad gambler. Like.
Speaker 2:A bad gambler like and if you've ever met anybody who has was really, like, addicted to gambling, it's I mean, it's a very, very sad disease, right, if you're, if you're addicted to gambling, like, it's really really really hard, um, and I feel sorry for those people because, like, they just can't help themselves and like, and if you're a bad gambler and you bet on things like football, like you could have an awesome weekend and you could be up 20 grand and then two weekends later, you can be down 30, 40, 50 grand and in your mind, like you're, you have a sickness. Like gambling is a sickness if you're addicted to it and like in your mind, like the only way that you can get that money back and you can get square again is to keep on gambling. And so, like now you're doing whatever you can do to keep you know for not to not get shut off, like you want to make sure that, like you can still place bets on a weekend and you're trying to catch up the whole time. It's so, it's cyclical, it's so sad, it's really, it's really a disease. So Ishmael is really, really, really in the hole.
Speaker 2:Like he is in the hole and we're starting to hear that, like there's a person who's coming over from New York who is going to now, like he's very frustrated with him. He's very frustrated that he's not making his. You know, he's not making his payments. And I don't know for your audience, like you know, I don't know how they didn't know how, like loan shark payments work, like so like you borrow money for a loan shark and in his case of Ishmael's case, like he borrowed money so he could pay off enough of his gambling debt so he could keep gambling, right, crazy as it is.
Speaker 2:And now, like, whatever he borrowed, he's got to pay interest every week, and typically between three and four points, so maybe like 208% interest every week on the money that he borrowed until he can give him back a lump sum of the money he borrowed, right. So you know, say, like you know, if he's borrowing like $10,000, like he's got to pay every week on a $10,000 until he can give him that money back, so it quickly, quickly escalates, so you miss payments, that gets tacked onto your lump sum and so like, next thing, you know they're literally paying thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars every week and they're never getting any headway. So that's how, like a lot of organized crime organizations, make a lot of money is through gambling and loan sharking. Okay, clear, clear.
Speaker 2:Cool. So, um, our guy Ishmael, like he's, he's, like he's very, very he's in a bad spot, um, but he knows he's got to, he's got to make some payments. So we, we meet Ishmael, we have a conversation and, like everybody, like you know, we get him in the back of the van. We have a conversation Like we know everything that's going on, like we've done our homework, we know who he owes money to, what's. You know what's going to happen to him Lies, lies. He. Just all he wants to do is he wants to lie enough so he can get out of the van and be on his merry. That dodge, that bullet, All right, let him. So, now, let him go. Two weeks later we're like, oh, it's getting really serious. Now we're talking to somebody else who's, like Ishmael's, in real trouble. Now, right, so now, two weeks later, we go by and I used to have like one of those Dodge caravans.
Speaker 2:It was like greatest undercover vehicle ever, like everybody wanted everybody wanted, like the Chrysler 300 or like the Challenger Dodge caravan. Baby, nobody ever made me as a cop and I used to take out the middle seat. So, like you had the front seats in the back seat. So like, literally like we'd scoop you know, go up on a, you know, pull up to him on the side of the road, open the open the door, get in and take him for a little ride. And so, like, two weeks later we go back. You lied to me about this, you lied to me about that. You know like, and you've learned about interview and interrogation Like, when you confront people, like you know you tell them like you they figure out, you you actually do know the truth. That's when they'll finally. And like he leans forward, he's like if I don't pay him $2,000 by Thursday.
Speaker 2:They're going to break my legs. Okay.
Speaker 2:Now we're starting to have a conversation, yeah Right. And so now we start working with Ishmael and like now we're gonna make him payments and we're recording his conversations, and now we're collecting evidence, we're doing all of these things and now, like it's starting to blossom, starting to bloom, and now we're starting to understand it's not just him, right, it's all of these people. And then a particular, and they're like in this particular investigation, all of them were car dealers. I don't know what it was about that time, but it like seemed like everybody that was kind of in this little network who was, you know, a loan shark victim, they were all car dealers. And so like, oh, you think I'm bad, this guy's like he's really bad shape.
Speaker 2:And I remember there was this like there was this one female car dealer who was kind of like she had been like the go between for all these people. She was, you know, picking up payments for folks and bringing them over to the loan shark, and she knew everybody. And like she kept moving, like it just seemed like she was like a ghost, like I'd show up at a house she had just been at and like I'm picking through trash Right, and like now I got a bill or I got something that says I would just so I I kept missing her. Like I'm going from house to house to house for like weeks and months trying to find this one, this one female Right, and then finally, finally we tracked her down, right Again, like very, very manual process back then Track her down, grab her and interview her. She gives up, like the whole thing.
Speaker 2:And so now from again, like from a memo of somebody saying this whole thing is going on, good, solid police work, hard, rolling up the sleeves, getting out, talking to people we now have like a whole network of people who are victims, that now we're recording conversations and now, like we're to the point where, like we can do like a high level conspiracy case on our two defendants over in Staten Island and I'll never remember, I'll never forget, forget, like we set up like a rip.
Speaker 2:So we're going to bring our guy over. Kenny's going to come over. He thinks he's going to get a loan shark payment from one of our you know cooperators and he pulls into the service area there on the Garden State Parkway it's a beautiful spring day, he's got the Lincoln Continental with the sunroof open, you know and he pulls up and he meets our guy and now we're going to take it down, right. So we run over you know, place him under arrest, put him in a troop car. Now somebody's got to drive his car from the service area to the station on the parkway, you know 10 or 15-minute drive, and I'm like, oh, I got the car, I'll drive it down.
Speaker 1:And what's he?
Speaker 2:driving. I got a Lincoln Cont down. What's he driving? Like a lincoln, continental, okay, all decked out. He's got like this, you know, he's got like the sunroof open. It's a beautiful spring day, get keys. I get in, I fire it up. Right. I got the tony the tony bennett playing on the radio as soon as I turn the key on and now I am just cruising down the parkway for about 10 minutes feeling like a king taking his car down there to have it be impounded.
Speaker 2:So nice, yeah, yeah so it ended up being like a really, really successful case. Like a number of agencies have been trying to, you know, put a case against Eddie Fisher for a long, long time, we ended up getting like a second degree conspiracy case against him. So what I think I'm like most proud about there is, like from just a little fragmentary piece of information, hard work, diligence, perseverance, just working the network, figuring out who's connected to who. That's how that whole case came together.
Speaker 1:Did you have a big cork board with yarn going from person to person? Get out of my head, Eric Levine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, literally stacks and stacks of paper, cic printouts, like DMV printouts, like I got a folder. It's like the size of five phone books stacked on each other. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I tell people, man, a beat book, you know, officers don't know nothing about a beat book anymore. And then using the old, you know connection system with the yarn. Yeah. That stuff that we don't have to. We don't have to do anymore because we can keep it all right here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, then what it took to transfer all that paper data that we had into a narrative and all the supplements as the investigation went forward.
Speaker 3:Just like Eric said, I mean the availability now that detectives have and officers have now in this tech world today, it makes me always wonder. Working for a large tech company myself, now is a week in the life of no internet, no connectivity. Where do our investigations go right with these young detectives out there? Where can they go to square one? Can we go back to the old days for a week? Yeah, because Because we've got you know, think about it. I mean just because they were never probably introduced to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they didn't need to. No, it's never been a problem.
Speaker 2:So back then I mean this is going back a few years so, like you know, I went into intelligence instruction in 1998. Back then we didn't have the internet but we had Danny Cortese and so, like Danny Cortese was like one of the greatest mentors in my my state police career. Love him Like he was a Sergeant at the time. And Danny, like I feel so fortunate that when I came out of uniform and I became a detective, I got to work with Danny because, like he taught me like the basics of being a good cop and the fundamentals that like really helped me, you know, be successful. And he used to be like he had that, like he was from Jersey city, he had that, he had that Jersey city.
Speaker 2:Like Lenny, like a good cop can't always know the answer, but a good cop is going to know who to call and when he makes the call, the person on the other end is going to pick up the phone Cause he's happy to hear from him. He's like your reputation is everything treated like gold. And so, like I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to work with people like you know Eddie Quirk, mark Doyle, danny, danny, like, just like they taught me how to be a good detective and how to be a good cop. And again, like we didn't have the internet but like I could come back from a surveillance and I've taken a bunch of pictures of some guys hanging out by a social club and Danny was one of those people who could be like all right, that's Charlie Stango, that's Frank Tango, you know.
Speaker 1:Like he could just remember everybody, everybody he knew everybody, he had a.
Speaker 3:Rolodex in his head yeah, that's crazy. And he knew their criminal histories and he knew their associations. He knew the associations.
Speaker 2:He knew why they were sitting there on the corner, like if those two guys are on the corner they don't like each other. If they're there together, they're doing something, there's some kind of business going on because they can't stand each other.
Speaker 3:He was the manual guy that created the relevance map. Oh, absolutely. He could do everything on a piece of paper that now we can do with a couple clicks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, he was amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does make me wonder what cops would do if they didn't have tech. Like, how many of them could figure it out? I'm sure a lot of them could. I think a lot understand how the tech's putting the pieces together for them. But the question I have is, like, will you be able to do it when it's crunch time? Like, will you be able to go out there and scour?
Speaker 2:like oh yeah go door-to-door.
Speaker 1:That that's a big thing. Door-to-door is a big one like I remember doing that and it would be so valuable. Even when the tech was there, I'd still do it, I'd still go out, and they're like what do you? What are you going out for? I'm like you never know who saw something. Well, we checked for ring doorbells none of them had any. I'm like you you never know who saw something. Well, we checked for ring doorbells None of them had any. I'm like you got to talk to people. You know people see stuff. Well, if it ain't on video, it doesn't happen. That's another thing that we got to start worrying about in policing.
Speaker 2:So like, and here's like, this is the thing in Albuquerque that just paid such dividends for us, like you know, body-worn camera, all different perspectives on body-worn camera. I'll give you like one example where it just it really made a lot of sense for us. And so, like you know, being able to integrate body-worn camera and being able to tie that to an investigation or a case, so like and I don't know how every department is, so I know, like a lot of times, like we'd go out to like a critical incident, like a shooting or somebody got stabbed, right, and the officers are out there like they're doing the best job that they can. Like they're going in, they're talking to four or five people, right, and they're trying their best to record everything that they can in a sub report of you know, four or five interviews of people in the neighborhood, neighborhood canvas. They can't get it all. Like they do their best. Or the person that they're talking to says a name or a nickname that doesn't really make sense to the you know, the reporting officer and maybe it doesn't make it into the report.
Speaker 2:But now, like you got the body worn camera, yeah, right now the analyst goes back and like they listen to that. They listen to the body worn camera from that sup report and they hear like a name or a nickname or something that makes a whole lot more sense to that you know violent crime analyst or that gang analyst or whoever. It makes a whole lot more sense to that you know violent crime analyst or that gang analyst or whoever. It makes a whole lot more sense to them than the reporting officer. Now we're out of the gate, now we're up and running with an investigative league. Oh, they sprayed the house because pookie's mad or whatever you know. And now, like we haven't, you know, now, because we're able to get that information in, like we can make maximum benefit of it yep, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:All righty brother. I want to move on from Intel days. I like the good stories. Those are always fun.
Speaker 2:You want to hear about the 300-pound guy that disappeared.
Speaker 2:Well, now that we've put it that way, so you know, my friends at the FBI and I was very fortunate, Like I was assigned to the FBI for eight and a half years working on a JTTF, but before that when I was working organized crime. You know the running joke is like we had a case on a guy in Bonanno Capo in again Monmouth County, new Jersey, frankie Coppa. Right, I'll tell a little bit about the case. But, like you know, the thing about the case is like, as we're getting ready to take it down, like Frankie Coppa just disappears, right, he's nowhere to be found. Like we've got all of his phones like tapped and then all of a sudden, like nobody can find Frankie. Nobody's heard from Frankie, nobody has seen Frankie, nobody knows where Frankie is. And then, lo and behold, we find out that Frankie is now in witness protection. So the running joke there was only the feds could make a 300 pound man disappear.
Speaker 1:I was thinking he was swimming with the fishes. But he made it. He lived Good for him. Now you did Intel and then you jumped over to Albuquerque I want to move over to Albuquerque. So you did your, you did your career and you decided 25 years wasn't enough.
Speaker 2:Punishment so, so, like again, like a lot of people are ages like nine 11s the event that changed my life and my career forever. I get literally. I was working the case on Frankie Copa on September 10th and then next day, nine 11 happens. I went to the JTTF and, um, you know, I was there, I, I stayed for eight and a half years. I had a tremendous, tremendous, tremendous opportunities working on JTTF. Got to work with the intelligence community Again, one of my regrets never being part of the US military.
Speaker 2:I got to spend a little time working with JSOC. I got to work with a group called Sijasodafay in Afghanistan. So I'm really, really proud of that work, did that for about eight and a half years and was like, came away from that experience, I learned how to use information much more effectively and like that was. That was really a great learning experience, you know, working with all those great people. And I did my last eight and a half years, uh, running the fusion center in New Jersey. So I ran the regional operations intelligence center for about eight years. Got to build two real time crime centers when I was there.
Speaker 1:It's pretty cool. Can you explain to people what a fusion center is and then what the difference between fusion and real time?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely so, like fusion center. There's a fusion center network across the country and like there's this saying that's you know it's a little cliche but we still kind of say it's like you've seen one fusion center. You've seen one fusion center and that's just simply to say that, like, fusion centers are configurable to an individual state or areas needs. So you can have statewide fusion centers in our case, New Jersey, regional operations intelligence center service, the entire state of New Jersey. You could have specific area fusion centers. I think there's a there's a fusion center specific to, like Fort Worth. You know Dallas, Fort Worth area. There's a statewide fusion center in Texas.
Speaker 2:But really, like, fusion centers exist to help us better understand crime trends, Like what are the things we need to be prepared for, Whether that is a violent crime trend, a property crime trend, it could be. You know our case, like we worked really closely with our partners in emergency management. It could be like a special event. How do we manage a special event? I'm a Super Bowl 48 survivor. I ran the Intel subcommittee for Super Bowl 48. I call that the year of my life. I'm never getting back back. But so fusion centers really kind of exist to help you make better decisions. And then, like when you take a look at like, I think, very strategic, like they can provide really great support to investigations, but really understanding where crime is trending and threats are trending now you take a look at like a real-time crime center well, before we move farther what do you got?
Speaker 1:with fusion centers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're talking to places like Homeland FBI, all of these three-letter agencies, multi-agency that's who you're connecting to through fusion, usually as a post-operation, post-investigation here's intel type of situation.
Speaker 2:So ours was a little different. Okay of situation, so ours was a little different. Okay, right, and so 26.
Speaker 2:By the time I left in 2018, 26 partner agencies, including fbi, dhs, dhs, ina, uh, federal air marshals, like I literally had their personnel assigned to and embedded in my fusion center right yeah, so like literally, like you could go down the hall in my fusion center and like you'd have a whole area where that was a specific area for, like, our federal partners to be at, where they had access to their information, so like we could share very information, share information, very.
Speaker 1:That's how mine runs. Yeah, yeah, yeah and so like.
Speaker 2:In the whole goal there is to like bring in all the partners to help you do your job a whole lot better.
Speaker 2:Very, really successful concept awesome, yeah, okay, cool now real-time crime centers yeah, great and they're awesome as well, just in a slightly different way. Right, and so like, when you think about like real time crime centers, like we're fusion centers, tend to be a little more strategic right and providing information on like trends and things or maybe some very specific case support, right, as events are happening in your jurisdiction, like like a major protest that now is blocked traffic, you need to respond to that very quickly. A priority one call for service, a shooting, a critical incident, whatever it is. Your real-time crime center, if you construct them right, can be really well positioned to provide those responding officers the information they need to do their job better. And you think about some like the more simple things, just the basic things, but like can be really high impact.
Speaker 2:Right, if I'm going to go out to a residence right that we've been to five times before Now I'm an officer who's heading out to that residence because there's somebody in distress. Right, they've put in a call for service. Maybe it's somebody's being injured at that residence. We've been there five times before. Wouldn't it be nice to know that, like, the last five times we were there, we encountered a person who really maybe has like behavioral health issues, and now I'm like there's a way to respond to that effectively and there's a way to like use, you know, specialized training maybe it was a CIT or a coast person to like diffuse that situation much more effectively, that situation much more effectively. Or maybe I'm going to go to a location and the last two times we were there somebody squirted out the back right and now we have to go find them and now we're doing a neighborhood search for a person. Like real-time crime centers can be like incredibly helpful in providing that vital information to responding officers so they can do their jobs much more effectively.
Speaker 1:Right that's one of the ways I like to put it to people is that the real-time crime center's main function is to support officers on the ground in real time and not with your basic dispatcher information. That's not what we're referring to. This is not a knock on dispatchers by any means, but dispatchers have a certain role with certain information that they get out there. With real-time crime centers, it's more detailed information through the eyes of law enforcement, whether that be hey, this car that's running from you, I'm going to in real time, run that plate, put it through our LPR system, see where that car is trending, where does it go the most? And then be able to say, oh, he's probably going to his baby mama's house, which is over here, because that's where we've seen this car go a lot and he's headed that direction. So being able to jump ahead and get that information to those officers on the ground in real time.
Speaker 1:And this is where I get in arguments with other departments, like, yeah, we got a real-time crime center. I'm like, oh, you do that's do. That's awesome man. Like, what are you guys doing? They're like oh, you know, we just kind of we help the detectives out. You know when they got cases and stuff like that, or you know a call will happen and we'll look up some information to see if we can't, you know, backtrack later on and identify the person.
Speaker 3:I'm like you're a past-time crime center.
Speaker 1:It can be both. It can be both, but that's what I'm saying. That's the difference between a real, real-time crime center is they're active. They are proactive. In my opinion, they are proactively if there is not an officer requesting their help. They're looking at the CAD information and they're saying all right, here's a call that just popped out, how can I help? All right, who's the caller? Who's the suspect name? Let me see what information I can find out on them. Suspect description.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me jam on out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they are actively looking before anybody's even assigned that call. And then the moment that call is assigned, there's probably already information on the sheet from the real-time crime center that says here's a picture of your possible suspect, here's a picture of your caller, here's the vehicles that are registered to that location, and just got all this information for that officer so that he doesn't have to worry about it. And that's just one aspect that we're talking about 100%.
Speaker 3:And the first time I got to see a real-time crime center in operation was out in the West, out in Arizona Mesa Old.
Speaker 1:Scottsdale.
Speaker 2:Scottsdale ah.
Speaker 1:Scottsdale's got it going on. One person or two in Scottsdale.
Speaker 3:With this job I go out there quite a bit and we were in there for 15 minutes and the gentleman that's running the scene is basically explaining. You may see something you may not, and I believe that specific crime center that we were in were a civilian run staff, right, which is different, a little bit different, you know I've seen them both areas.
Speaker 3:So but what happened was is I had my, my team in there and and one of our reseller organizations in there, and we were kind of just bearing witness to what goes on and, with my law enforcement experience, watching these professionals work, when a call came out and basically a tier one, priority one call came out. Um, it was a shooting. Okay, that's what it came in not many details, but they were able to pin down an address within 11 minutes of the first officer arriving on scene. Drones were on scene in seconds. Right, I mean to watch this thing launch and to see everything in live, the real time, happening in front of me, wishing that I would have had this my entire law enforcement career, right.
Speaker 3:But 11 minutes after that first patrol officer on scene, they already rolled an acid and we had a bear cat on scene with an entire team. And I was blown away because the last agency that I worked at it took me an hour and a half to get another deputy to me on a stolen car in 2024. So I'm watching this Now. I came from a larger agency so I was used to the municipality stuff. But then going to the county setting in the middle of nowhere, we call it BFE out there trying to work with no radio signals.
Speaker 3:And then going out there and watching all these assets and teams come together and how fast it was to diffuse that situation. I guarantee you, in 10 years, how is a large city going to operate without a real-time crime scene and be successful in law enforcement? We've evolved so much just in the past six years. Looking back at the history of these things of how much it's helped yes, it's amazing in the past six years.
Speaker 1:Looking back at the history of these things of how much it's helped yes, it's amazing, yep and I think as long as we keep doing our due diligence to keep the checks and balances to make sure police don't overstep, because it's a very powerful tool oh yeah so that's one of the things that I'm constantly.
Speaker 1:That's why I get myself so involved, um with this side of the houses. I want to make sure that when we have a fun toy and it's helping keep people safe, that we don't overstep and you're not checking in on your ex's new boyfriend and doing crap like that. And the one thing to help keep people's worries at bay that I can tell you from my experience is every single thing is logged. There is not a step that can be taken without that person being tracked for logging, and it has to be that way.
Speaker 2:I'll do you one better. Like and I always recommend to people who are standing up a real-time crime center is like have an auditing function right. Take the time as a supervisor to go back and look at a set number of calls, pull them by random or pull them by, you know, call, type and go and do just like a good, healthy review. One it's a great accountability measure, right. Like you know, you can point to a process that you have that says I proactively go in review the work that goes on in my real-time crime center. I get a better sense for, like is it in compliant with policy? Is it compliant with best practice? So I have a process that I do myself to make sure I I'm in compliance with policy.
Speaker 2:But two, when you identify gaps, you identify things that could have been, that were done wrong or could have been done better. Great material for your next round of training that you have to do or you should do. You know, great opportunity to say like, look, what we did in this situation is awesome, we need to do more of this. Or like, in what we did in this situation, we could have done better and here's how we could have done it. So, like you can save yourself so much pain and you could be such a more effective, you know real-time crime center. Just like still a little self-audit.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, absolutely so, with three current and former law enforcement officers that we have in here from all parts of the country. You know eric working in a different state as well before he came here, yeah, you being in the northeast and then then down in new mexico, you're going to see different versions of his two is the mental health care, and I'm coming back to oh yeah crime center on this is they handle mental health for peace officers or law enforcement differently around the country sometimes better, sometimes worse, and my 21 years in law enforcement I watched it go from absolutely horrible to it's the non-spoken.
Speaker 3:You don't ask for the help and by golly you keep it up here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're okay, go home and talk to your wife about it, you're fine, you're fine. Compress, compress, compress. To where it's slowly. It's never been perfect. I've never seen it perfect. They're trying to get better in some instances, thank God. But going from what it was in the Northeast or where it is down here in Texas, or out in New Mexico, arizona, wherever we have to think about this new technology coming out in the real-time crime centers, what these officers and civilians are witnessing to bear witness, even though it's on a computer screen, is are we going to look at this in five years and make sure that we have steps in place and I know a lot of them do and they're already identifying, targeting that.
Speaker 3:but we got to make sure that that is there because, even though they're not on scene per se, but some of these crime centers now are able to hear the 911 call, they're living the entire call virtually in a virtual center and it's just I want to make sure that that all of our states are going to start taking care of them just like they would. The officer on the scene that needs that help, because they're sometimes the people in real time crime center are getting exposed more to it.
Speaker 2:Well, there's. There's just such a high tempo of it. It's call after call, after call after call. You're, you're a hundred percent right. Like, and we need to like be thinking through, like, what are our people exposed to day after day, eight, 10, 12 hours a day, right, day after day? Like, where do they, where's the relief valve for them? Right, how do they do we have, do we have a program in place where they feel comfortable saying like I just did the last three calls in the last two hours and I'm just like I need to, I need to go take a knee for a minute, like I need to go get a cup of coffee, I need, I just need to like take a little break, like we need to make sure that we're we're giving those people the opportunity to either self-report or, you know, feel like comfortable and like saying like hey, I just need to take a little bit of a break.
Speaker 3:It's a little different watching a movie, a violent movie, versus watching real life unfold in front of you, either on the scene, virtually eye in the sky, whatever it is, and we just got to make sure that we take care of that. And I love just speaking on mental health, so I like to bring that in.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I love that you have the same feelings on that.
Speaker 2:We think about it like you know, in a typical shift if, like, an RTCC is handling, let's say, five priority one calls that are really, you know, that are really quite you know, difficult, like you know difficult, you've got officers at all those calls and they're all handling their each critical incident. Your real-time crime center is handling all of them. The individual officers are at maybe one or maybe two, but your RTCC people are seeing them all yeah, and now we can tap into their body cameras and watch that live.
Speaker 1:So now you've got first-person view that could for those listening.
Speaker 1:Real-time crime centers can be made up of law enforcement, can be made up of civilian, can be made what we call hybrid, which is all all of the above, and they all have the view that they can watch through your body cam, through your dash cam, through Air One, through a drone. So it's a little different than dispatch, which also hears tragedies over the phone. They hear it, right, but now we're adding the element of visual into that. So you combine those two things. It amplifies it. It's not, it's not just hearing it now, it's now, it's you're seeing, and I could even argue that hearing it sometimes may be worse, because if you're just hearing it now, your even argue that hearing it sometimes may be worse, because if you're just hearing it now, your imagination takes over.
Speaker 1:Right so if you have a worse of imagination, who knows?
Speaker 3:what? And the dispatcher stuff hits really home to me. My wife was a dispatcher for years, right, and she was the dispatch supervisor for a large, large city here for a long time and she did what's which a lot of agencies do and that's that's the EMD emergency medical dispatch. So not only is she hearing the struggle going on on the other end, right now she's tabbing through an EMD book and giving life-saving instructions. Wow. And then for everyone that doesn't make it you know what I'm saying. They have a tier of responsibility of what happened there, the vicarious liability, what they have to take home, right, and for my wife coming home to speak to her police officer husband about and we had a good relationship exchange and it helped us throughout all those years to be able to decompress with each other. But then you have to look at the. Are the agencies providing that as well? It's just as important for the ones that are listening, the auditory of it, it's so important, yep.
Speaker 2:I got a good thing I just want to talk about here for a second, like on officer wellness, because, like again, like that, like we're talking about like all the technology and being able to pull this in, like being exposed to it. I'm gonna go the other way on this one just a second. So, like we were talking with an agency about like their process for officer wellness, right, and so that at the like their process was, they had a set like specific calls that they would be screening for through their CAD and it'd be just be like okay, for if we have this particular type of call and it's the high impact calls that you would think of like a stabbing, a shooting, whatever, like every day they'd come in in the morning, they would go through their CAD and they'd say, which is awesome, I mean, that's really what you want to do, you want to be proactive. And so we kind of took that to the next step and we're like, hey, that's an awesome idea, like let's make sure we're reaching out to the officer and kind of checking in, seeing we're okay, you're going off CAD notes and like I'm sure your wife speaks CAD, right, so she understands CAD notes, but not everybody understands CAD notes and not everything about the call is in the CAD notes.
Speaker 2:So before you pick up that phone and you call the officer to see how they're doing, well, there's a piece of body-worn camera that's probably tied to that CAD call. How about I just go back and I pull that piece of body-worn camera and I take a quick look at that. Let's see how that incident unfolded from the officer's eyes. So when I do that proactive outreach to an officer to make sure they're okay, I can reference certain things that I saw through the officer's eyes. I think it's a really good way to identify areas where we need to be proactive and then arming those people with the right information so they can have, like a really impactful outreach.
Speaker 3:What do you guys think about that? I think absolutely, and then and then, to capitalize on that, the ripple effect. Yeah. The guys and gals are being the ones that are being proactive and going out. Yeah, they have just now bear witness to everything. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And they're the ones that are going out. And so years go by. Is that captain their boss? Are they coming at them? Hey, you just did this for six months. You took care of all these guys and gals, from dispatch to the crime center to the officers on the street. How the hell are you doing? Yeah because you you may have not been on scene, but you just bear witness to everything through what a jury would see or whatnot. You're gonna be exposed to that, yeah so we got to make I mean it's that ripple effect, right so?
Speaker 2:it's it's it's cumulative. Well, I mean, sometimes it could be acute, but a lot of times it's just cumulative.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, yeah. Cumulative trauma, cumulative, cumulative trauma, there we go.
Speaker 3:That is a thing and I can rabbit hole all day on that and I apologize for taking us down all those channels. No, no, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:I mean, you're hitting all the topics I love to talk about officer wellness leadership like these are technology. These have been core aspects of my career.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and educational note, if those were wondering, when we're saying CAD notes, we're talking about what an officer sees on his computer screen from dispatch or from other officers or whatever. When they're in their car they'll see on their computer screen what the call details are. And those call details they don't look like normal English that you and I would text back and forth to each other. It is, you know, cp, states, but it'll say the letters cp, and they're saying they're meaning complainant states, and states is sts, doesn't say states. So you start to learn cad talk as you say it's its own language. Yeah, it is, it's its own language and you just kind of figure it out as you go and I don't really think there's anybody that teaches it, nope, I just think that's how it's always been and you learn it as you go usually your fdo that says hey, dumbass, this is what that means, right there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's how you learn it.
Speaker 2:It's a combination of radio codes right, and it's a combination of abbreviations wherever they can save time while they're typing to get the cad notes in because, like a dispatcher is multitasking big time yeah all day long for their entire shift, so they're trying to figure out ways to get information in quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so like if you see something that says BMF, like two people or whatever, like that's not bad motherfucker. That's not what that means.
Speaker 2:That's black, male and female, and then where you have AF that doesn't mean Unless you're watching Pulp Fiction and you're pulling the wallet out.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and if you see af it doesn't stand for, you know what is it as fuck, or whatever they say whatever they're saying out there, mexico as fuck. Yeah, yeah it's um, it means royale, yeah, royale with cheese. Yeah, so it's. It's funny when you get so used to that language and then you kind of reflect back and you're like how did I learn that?
Speaker 3:nobody taught me that, yeah and how far does it stick? And I, I can speak on this. You know I don't know your, your spouse is your your better half on what she did, but, like when I got here to eric's house, our code at the time when we worked together, when she worked at our dispatch center, was I'm 23 on the scene, I'm 23, eric's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 10-4 yeah that's I mean, that's how we're texting each other, because we're so used to doing it. 56. Yep, 56. And we down here with a 54.
Speaker 3:We're going to go meet somewhere.
Speaker 1:Exactly. It's different all over the country, but it's funny how long it stays with you.
Speaker 1:Yep, I'm a plain language guy. I try not to use a whole lot of codes, but there, you know, you hear somebody over there. Oh, he 12'd out, oh dang, yeah, word. Yeah, that's mine. I say that all the time. Word All right. I get people all the time. Let me get this word, yeah. So if you're wondering what we're talking about when I text people, like if I'm confirming, if I understand, if I'm happy, word yeah, you got a rudge. Yeah, you had a rudge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'll say word. That's just. I don't know. I've had that habit for a long time.
Speaker 3:Stick on code for one second. I'm just going to give you my municipality and then go into BFE working in the county.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:I came from the municipality down in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and, just like Eric was stating, if you heard signal 12 on the radio, it means the heart's not beating Right. Don't know how, but that's your signal 12 over the radio. Was you're going to a deceased body? More than likely yeah, and then retire from here, take off about eight months, get back into the line of work at a much lower hourly rate and I'm out in the middle of nowhere, Right, and I'm hearing on the radio as I'm learning because my FTOing from having all the experience down here to going up there. I had three days of training, about two hours a day, to get me used to the county area.
Speaker 3:Right Station familiarization and I kept hearing I'll be out here signal 12, and I finally look at the guy that I'm training with. That has a lot less years of experience but a wealth of knowledge for what I'm learning up there, sure, and I'm like how many signal 12s do y'all have? He's like at least two per shift and I'm like you gotta be kidding me two per shift and I'm like, well, break that down to me.
Speaker 4:He's like we're allowed two lunch breaks so up there is lunch breaks, and you know.
Speaker 3:So I heard some anyway, so put two and two together. There were not that many dead bodies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be different. It's funny that the codes vary from spot to spot.
Speaker 2:32, that's a person with a leg 23, 25. I'm on a 30 with a 14.
Speaker 3:We used to have to say we're out on a 37 or a 38, a suspicious person, that type of thing. I'm going to run a 28, which is pretty nationally known, I think the 28s are 27, 28, 27, 29.
Speaker 1:That's what it is, so like then for me.
Speaker 2:like you know, I'm in New Jersey state police and we have our own codes. Now I go to Albuquerque, right? Oh, it's a complete different way.
Speaker 1:It took me a while to understand. Now, did you guys use military phonetics in the trooper world, or did you use All the time. Okay, so, yankees, you're using those. Then when you went to, Albuquerque did they use the police ones Very?
Speaker 2:different, yeah, very different. On midnights we were playing full metal jacket over on the car-to-car. We were all about it, pal.
Speaker 3:In.
Speaker 2:Albuquerque. It's just a very different scenario.
Speaker 3:I'm sure your dispatchers are like did I detect a Niner in that?
Speaker 1:Every officer that I worked with in the field as a patrolman. They knew if I started calling out military phonetics they needed to get there because I had hit a stress level.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I may not sound like it. Sometimes I did.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I definitely sounded like it. You reverted back to your first training.
Speaker 1:But yeah, they hear me start going military phonetics. They knew that my stress level had went up and I was reverting back, so they would be show me in route.
Speaker 3:I was like I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:He started to take off faster and whatever.
Speaker 2:Well, you learn the people on your squad.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely Now, lenny, whatever. But um, well, you learn the people on your squad. Yes, absolutely now, lenny. What do you got? You did, your did your trooper thing. You went over to albuquerque, you did your uh nerdy tech thing for real-time crime centers and fusion centers, yeah, and you did something that is very hard for a lot of police to do you transitioned. Sure, not medically transitioned, but you transitioned your career field.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You went private sector.
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 1:Okay, never thought I would do it. Explain that whole process. Give hope to those that are getting near the end. Yeah, and let me know what it is you're doing now.
Speaker 2:So awesome, Happy to do it. Um, it really kind of. I got to back up just a couple of steps, though, if that's okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, back it up.
Speaker 2:Like like I had retired from the New Jersey state police and I was just living my best life. I had a little consulting firm on the side for a while, like day at work was literally sitting on the beach with a laptop and a cell phone, and yeah, that's when I was a consultant. And then I go to New Mexico on vacation, all right, and I'm out there with my family having a grand old time and like, I'm fishing up at this place called Shuri Ponds, great place to fish, and I'm talking to this guy who's fishing next to me and we're just kind of chit chat and I'm telling him, yeah, I'm retired. And he goes like, hey, you should call Albuquerque PD, cause they're looking for somebody that has your skills. And to this day I have no idea how that man you know, I don't, I have no idea who it was but like, literally I go back to the cabin at night and I go back and I see a look at Indeed and I'm like, oh, albuquerque police department, real-time crime center. And like I showed to my wife and she's like, wow has everything but your picture. It's all the things you've done in your career.
Speaker 2:And so, sure enough, I come back from vacation. Like I'm like, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to follow up on this. And like file an application, put in a resume. And like I laugh, like I say like an hour later it's probably it may have been 90 minutes, but like 90 minutes later, like my phone rings and it's this guy, mark Velarde. And Mark Velarde, he's like hey, like he starts conversation Like are you Lenny Norbetsky?
Speaker 2:I'm like, yeah, he's like. He's like dude, are you for real? And I started laughing. He goes I'm like what are you talking about? He goes like I've been looking for somebody with your experience and skills for like six months. We haven't been able to find somebody. Would you really come to New Mexico? And so he's like, well, this is the craziest thing. Like me and my deputy chief are going to be in New York in two weeks. Would you come meet us when we're in New York? I'm like it's an hour away. Sure, my job interview was in a hotel bar. Like literally 10 minutes into my job interview, like I'm showing the chief like the pictures of the fish I'd caught on vacation, and he's like, oh, bro, it makes sense. Now, now I know why you want to come to New Mexico.
Speaker 2:And it's like next thing I know I'm in the Albuquerque police department running a real time crime center. It was just it was meant to happen.
Speaker 2:Like I wasn't looking for it, I wasn't out there hunting for it, it kind of came my way and I just right place, right time. I think I'm supposed to be there. All the doors open up the next thing, you know, I'm running a real-time crime center. I walk in the door at the Albuquerque police department real-time crime center and like leaving New Jersey with like a lot of challenges around data that I was never able never really able to solve. Like I walk in the door at Albuquerque different agency, right State police to major metropolitan police departments same exact problem 10 or 15 different systems that they had purchased over the years that just didn't connect. Everything was siloed Like the chief would ask a question. Next thing, you know, an analyst is scrambling for a day and a half to try to pull information. To answer the chief's question Just didn't make any sense whatsoever and so I reached out to a buddy of mine. I got reconnected with a guy named Matt Melton who was working for AWS at the time. He now works for us at Peregrine. Call Matt. And I'm like, hey, like it's a mess here. I really need help. Like their data has got some real challenges. We were doing the best we can with what we had, but like we could definitely be doing better. And I remember to this day like he connects me up and he's like you really should talk to these people from Peregrine. They're you know, at the time they were, they were newer, but he's like they have something that's a little bit different. A little they're on the ball. So I get on a call with this guy, the CEO the CEO, nick Noon, who's CEO today and like Nick and I get on a call and he really wants to do and he used he used very specific terms that resonated with me. He's like technology providers could be doing a better job to solve, to help law enforcement agencies. Like that was me, like I felt like I needed, I needed better technology. And then like he turns on the platform and like he's showing me like what he's built out in a couple agencies that he was working with and he's like explaining the vision for, for what we can do now and where we're going and how we're doing all this and what we're pulling together to help law enforcement agencies do their jobs better. And for you guys, I know you can relate. At that moment I was struck with the realization that I had finally found the person who understood what I was trying to do in law enforcement and had built the platform to help me do it. Like, and from that day, like I have been a fan I mean I have been a fan I ended up. I ended up being Peregrine's third customer at Albuquerque police department. Um, and we just used it with tremendous results and like we were able to do things in our department we were never to do before.
Speaker 2:Like now, like in the story I tell is like you know, the chief would be in the tunnel going over to the mayor's office to have a meeting and I'd get like a frantic phone call and he'd be like Lenny, are AutoBergs up in, beat 434? I'm like, no hold on, chief. And like, literally, I crack out my laptop and like no chief, they're down. He's like you're sure they're down. Yeah, no, chief, the autoburgs are down and beat 434. He's like bet your paycheck on it. I'm like I think I just did, chief. And he's like thanks. I'm like, so, like you know, like literally in seconds, I could provide him the information he need to go have a meeting or talk to somebody, like wherever he was going. But like I was able to provide him that information so quickly, so accurately, that I had faith and confidence in Like I would use the platform to help you. I use the platform every day, 20 times a day, to solve problems.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that for people trying to understand one I talk fast, peregrine is where you transitions to thank you working for them, and the fix, if I'm hearing you correctly, is that one of the things that it fixed for you was taking all these programs that, let's face it, each department may have some sort of siloed control over.
Speaker 1:And what I mean by that for people listening, is your crime analyst has this one piece of tech that they got ordered for them because it helps them in their job, of tech that they got ordered for them because it helps them in their job, but simultaneously that would help other officers in their position but they don't use it and they don't have the ability to get access to it.
Speaker 1:Then you have your gang unit that has GangNet, which is another program that gang can use but nobody else has access to. That would help other people throughout the department, including your crime analyst. So I'm giving you I'm painting you guys, a picture where all these different siloed programs that work, specific for these specialized units, peregrine was able to take that and say oh, we're not going to take away your stuff, we're going to take all the stuff that you currently have and we're going to put it into a bowl for you to pull out of, for everybody to use, not just these specialized units, because y'all work for the same team so y'all need to be able to pull the same information. So it's pulling all the information that you already had. It's just consolidating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's doing a little more than consolidating.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is the dumbed down version. I'm trying for what you just explained. We haven't even gone down the rabbit hole of what you got going on today, so I'm just trying with how quickly you just said that I'm slowing it down, the jersey comes out, yeah. I'm slowing it down, I'm trying to put it together for guys like Banning to understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean like what we really do. I mean like just at our core, what we do is we help an agency get better use of their data than they can today, like when they have all of these different silos of information, like and the information is not connected or integrated or modeled. I won't go, I won't go really tactical, but like, if you have data that you use in your agency, we can help you get more value out of that data.
Speaker 1:Yes, and one of the aspects that I like about it is and I say this all the time, this is not a you know, peregrine just happens to be one of our sponsors this year and proud sponsor, proud sponsor. I love it and because me before they ever were a sponsor, we're talking years before they ever were a sponsor with what we got going on, I brag about Peregrine all the time. I'm like this is going to be the next best thing in law enforcement and I truly believed it. I believe it now, but I believed it then and I would always say I was like it turns the shittiest detective into Sherlock Holmes and that's just kind of a thing that I coined because to me that's really what it was doing and seeing how it could take what would take me weeks to put together, sometimes months, sometimes years, sometimes it would never get put together because Banning's a detective and Lenny's a detective, and Banning works on the west side, lenny works on the east side with me and we've got related cases.
Speaker 1:We have no clue because nothing in the system talks to each other unless we talked about a case. Like man, I just got the fifth rooftop AC unit theft this month, right, and you're like oh shit, I've got a bunch of those, and it only happened to be water cooler. Talk for us. Meanwhile, banny's got the same thing going on on his side of town. That's never going to happen, right? So we could have aggregated all those cases together, but that system that common MO, common suspect it would have taken a long time.
Speaker 1:Things like Peregrine are able to seconds. Let you know that they're all connected. And then it doesn't just tell you that, hey, you may have some cases connected, it tells you Banning's cases are connected and that Lenny's cases are connected. So to me that's the shit. And that Lenny's cases are connected, so to me that's the shit. So you go into this private sector and now you are with a company that's solving all the things that you wish you could have solved quick, fast and in a hurry as an officer. Right.
Speaker 1:Now the way I look at it, lenny, you're still serving.
Speaker 2:I had finally made the decision to leave law enforcement, which is like one of the hardest decisions that I ever had to make in my life. Everybody who's in law enforcement they understand you get into the profession because you love it, so it's a hard profession to leave For me. I got to the point where I really saw the value in what we were doing. I saw how transformational it was for Albuquerque police department. I saw that like there was a potential to help my fellow brothers and sisters in law enforcement do their jobs more effectively, right, get home at the end of their shift safely Like that's the kind of impact that it could have for, you know, any department out there. I'm like I got to get this in the hands of as many cops as I can, and so I made the hard decision in the fall of 2021 to step away from Albuquerque Police Department and join the Peregrine team full time. I was the first former law enforcement retired law enforcement member to come to the team. We are now eight deep, so there's eight. You know there's eight of us now who are from, you know, prior law enforcement on the team where I run what's called the public safety executive team. All right, so we're.
Speaker 2:We're all former law enforcement who have solved problems into, you know, using technology, trying to. You know we work with agencies out there to understand what their problems are and literally to just say like, yeah, that's a problem we don't solve. Like you know, hey, if you need somebody that does like social media scraping, that's awesome. I understand that capability. That's really not what we do. Right, we can enhance a social media scrape, but we don't do social media scraping. But, like, if you're trying to make better sense of the data that you already own, if you're trying to figure out where to deploy your resources, your officers, at the right places at the right time, if you want to pull in all of your camera feeds and your LPR feeds and your AVL and your body warrant and all your data into one place to make it more operationally useful, like, we're the company for you. And so the public safety team works with law enforcement agencies to understand what their problems are and explain to them how we could potentially help them.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it so in that, with that program and its ability because it is that a good way to describe it Is it's a program.
Speaker 2:As far as like the public safety executive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So we're, we're, yeah, we're, we're, we're a team that supports many elements throughout the company, but like our whole goal there is to help. Like we do that translation piece that's so important. Like we help. One of the coolest things that I love about my job right Is like I get once a week I get to get on a call with some super, super smart engineering folks, both like back in engineering, front end engineering. I get to get on a call with them every Friday and talk about like what cops need right, and like explain to them like hey, out in the field, they need this or they need that or it does this now and now it needs to do something different. Like I get to translate to them like what an officer needs in the field and then they go and build it, and they don't build it in 18 months, they build it like. They build it like in a day sometimes. Like like I think one of the coolest things that ever happened was I was, I was at a customer site and I'm working with Serena, who's a crime analyst, and she's an awesome crime analyst, and she's like she was explaining that like the platform on that time, would you know, like she wanted to draw two polygons and you had to search each polygon one at a time and she wanted to search.
Speaker 2:She wanted to draw two polygons, search them both at the same time and it was a capability that just didn't exist at the time. So like literally, here, serena, talk to the engineer, put the engineer on the phone with Serena, they have a conversation to hands him the phone back and he's like, yeah, that's actually not too bad, like we'll, we'll get to that as soon as we can. And like like the next day, like they made the change right now and like they made the change to the software. So now the capability would exist like in 24 hours, right, push to change out. Now Serena has got that update, she's got that new capability.
Speaker 2:But then, like we take that same capability that we just built for Serena and we share it with everybody and because we have the ability to make changes to the platform, make enhancements, like you know, build new capabilities for our customers, like the platform is like a living, breathing organism, like it constantly changes and evolves and new capabilities come in. Because we listen to what cops and analysts and our customers need and we're able to quickly turn around those requests for them and get them back out to the field, and that's why the platform continues to grow in capability. I know I'm getting a little technical, but yeah.
Speaker 1:So, in that, one of the things I like to do is put confidence behind products that are for public service. Yeah, because one of the first things people start worrying about is a big brother. Yeah. So, in that confidence building, can you get into a little bit of the checks and balances that they have? Sure, and then, after you do that, I want your favorite success story because of what you're doing All right, cool, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, like you know, the safeguards that you know privacy and civil liberties are, like those are the core. Like you know you have to, you have to protect people's civil rights, you have to protect privacy. And so, like, those are not things that you can bolt on. Like you can't build a software platform and then say, oh, we got to add all the security measures in, like those capabilities to do auditing, right, those capabilities to do granular permission control, like they're built into the core of the platform. So the platform was actually constructed with those concerns in mind and like, and we are constantly testing, we're constantly updating those capabilities. We're listening to our customers, we're addressing things that they see very quickly and easily, Because we know that, like, if you don't have those capabilities, we're listening to our customers. We're addressing things that they see very quickly and easily, because we know that, like, if you don't have those privacy, you don't have those privacy capabilities enabled, like you can't be successful.
Speaker 2:And so, like, we take that very, very seriously. And then, like, as far as success stories, wow, holy cow, it just really kind of depends on like. It really kind of depends on, like you know, we solve a lot of problems for law enforcement agencies. So like we have a you know we work very closely with Fairfax County Police Department. They're awesome customers, we love working with them and it seems like every week they're talking to us about a scenario where they're in their real-time crime center and maybe it's an abduction, I think.
Speaker 2:Actually the one that, like one of the recent ones that just was, I thought it was really impactful for us is like they had had a number of complaints about somebody that you know, a person who was harassing children, and they couldn't really kind of get a handle on it and they had like a sketch and then like so what they didn't realize was they had a number of different cases come in on the same suspect in different locations, but somehow they had never gotten connected through like their RMS system.
Speaker 2:And then they very quickly, once they deployed Peregrine, they were very quickly able to see, oh my God, like I have a case over here and I have a case over here and like it's the same potential suspect, and we were able to link those cases together. They identified a suspect, they apprehended and charged the suspect and so now we've got a much safer community. Like those are the things that get me out of bed and put me on a plane every week because, like I, want to get this into hands of fellow law enforcement so they can do their jobs better.
Speaker 1:Dude I get so pumped up I get so pumped like that's the nerd side of me in doing this and when we talk about this podcast and all that stuff when got banning involved, like these are the things that I build it around because I get so pumped up about new ways to fix old problems. Oh yeah, cause crime is still crime. It it they either hurt someone, stole something Uh, that's pretty much it really hurt people and steal stuff. I mean that's you know, that's what it really comes down to and there's just new and creative ways to do all of these things.
Speaker 2:um, especially with technology, we're we're always behind the curve, I think, but we're quickly catching up with things like what you guys got going on so one of just another example, because again another one that was important for me, like in many departments, like CompStat's like a dirty word, like people just do not like CompStat.
Speaker 1:CompStat's such a pain in the ass too.
Speaker 2:I know, and it's because, like a lot of people, don't have the tools to run an effective CompStat.
Speaker 1:Can you explain what CompStat is? Yeah, so.
Speaker 2:CompStat is a very well it's. A lot of agencies use CompStat. It's well deployed and it's a way for you know an agency's leadership to check to see how the agency is doing on progress, to like specific goals. Like if a specific goal for an agency is we're going to drive down auto burglaries across the city, for you know, 15% in the next year, like CompStat is a way to come together, see how you're doing on pace, making sure that you're driving down those goals. You know 15% in the next year. Like CompStat, it's a way to come together, see how you're doing on pace, making sure that you're driving down those goals. You're identifying crime trends. You're getting out in front of them, you're addressing those issues and you know you come to the CompStat meeting we're taking.
Speaker 2:We're having hard conversations about what's working right, because when you know this times it's, you know the comp stat meeting is only focused on what's not working. A good comp stat will take a minute to highlight the things that are working because, like when you're driving down crime in a certain beat or a certain area, command or a certain district, you're doing something right. Let's capture that in the meeting. Let's understand what we're doing right to have that positive result and then let's do a whole lot more of it. So it's, you know, you have to look at both what's going you know what you're doing right and then the areas for improvement. And, like most people, like before you know, before I had Peregrine at Albuquerque, I did. I did what I knew. I got it together a bunch of PowerPoint slides, I threw a bunch of static maps in there with some static stats, and it was just what I'll say is it was not. It was the opposite of dynamic.
Speaker 1:Right, and how long did that process take?
Speaker 2:Oh God, Like my crime analyst would spend an entire week. I was going to say yeah pulling all the information together to try to have like so I could put together slides to run a CompStat meeting.
Speaker 1:The manpower and hours that go behind. Traditional comp stat is it's a 40 hour probably takes 20 hours of one person. Not to mention that all, not to mention the people in the background, like your crime analysts, that are pulling that stuff for the person that's going to piece it all together, right so and like and like.
Speaker 2:For us, like you know, we quickly, once we got paragraph like one of the first things I did was I I took it from that very static PowerPoint going well and where we have some challenges in the Southeast. Like you have the ability to look at the data in Peregrine so you see for yourself like what's going on in your area. Like there's no gotcha moment. There's no, you know, ambush, there's no. Like we're talking about the same data. Like you can see the data we're going to talk about in CompStat two, three days before. So like you can be prepared. Like there's none of this ambush style CompStat. Like we know where the, we know what we're doing. Good, we know we have some areas we need to work on. Come prepared to talk about what you've done, what's working and what's not working. So like that whole gotcha is gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what the part that I want people to take, because if you're outside of law enforcement, you're listening to this you're like how does this pertain to me? Here's how it pertains to you. This in my, the way that I would look at this from a citizen's point of view, a taxpayer's point of view, is getting people to do the job right now is difficult. Getting the money to hire for a new position is difficult. So we have two very difficult things in a career field that's shrinking and is getting harder and harder to get the people you want to do it. When you get something like this, the way I'm looking at it is you just created a force multiplier that almost cannot be measured, because you've just killed manpower and man. The time that it takes to do all these things almost in a way that you can't quantify. You can, you can track it if you really want to, but taking 20 hours away from one person for CompStat, you just save 20 hours for the city. Now let's put you know five detectives together that all have the same MO cases. We've just shrunk that down into minutes versus weeks and months, if ever. So that's just on saving money from the manpower side that I'm looking at not to mention accountability money from the manpower side that I'm looking at, not to mention accountability. So you've got your cases.
Speaker 1:When you have a product like Peregrine, you can see the leads and you can make sure that they're followed up on. You can find out if your officers and your detectives are doing their job and if they're not, we can start having the tough conversations. Hey, I see this lead, this lead, this lead. You're not. You haven't hit it yet. What's the deal? Right? Oh, sorry, I got caught up on this case, this case. Okay, that makes sense. We'll make sure these get followed up, right? Or hey, I checked out these cases. You closed out or pended, bro, you missed all this. Right, that's unsat. You got to fix that quick, fast and in a hurry. So now we're giving that customer satisfaction to our taxpayers. That deserve it.
Speaker 1:So when I'm looking at this and I hear you say all that stuff, I'm like all right, I don't want this to sound pitchy, that's not what we're going for here. What I'm going for is there's some things that are out there that the public's not aware of that can help your department out so much, and I'm willing to lay on the sword to tell you like this is one of those things and not enough people know about it. So here's the opportunity. Let's talk about it right. And now we've built up the trust behind a guy that's done the job for this long between two departments and knows what the fuck he's talking about. Not just a guy that had to put you know you could get any guy that's been a cop 20 years and people out there are going to be like, oh, he must know what he's talking about. We both know that that's not true.
Speaker 1:I've been around guys that have done the job for a long time and they still think you can just go up and ID somebody because they got a call there.
Speaker 2:You know I'm like what the fuck? But we just call that like it's not 20 years of experience, it's one year of experience repeated 20 times. Yes, yes exactly.
Speaker 1:So that's the point that I was trying to get to with this and kind of hammer home for those that are outside of law enforcement. Now, those that are in law enforcement, you know how it goes. You see the shiny toy. You really hope your department will get it it. But they don't always have the right push, they don't have the right things going on in their department. Right, and they got other worries. But if your citizens get on board and are like, why don't you have this? We have a manpower issue, we're down 300 officers, things aren't getting solved, cases are stacking up. You need to get this be more efficient. So that's the push I'm trying. I always try to get the citizens behind something.
Speaker 3:I think that will help them yeah, and I've got to ask you know I work for a law enforcement tech company too and that this show's not about that today, but I recently just a year ago jumped off the diving board from that protective job and the law enforcement officer and and that leap and mine went outstanding.
Speaker 3:I know a lot of people but some people don't go so great. But what I'm getting at is you made a lot of connections as well, all over the country, not just because of the position you're in now but your experience within that law enforcement realm. Have you ever gotten that rookie or intermediate advanced cop call you and say I love Peregrine so much? Can you give me something that I can take to my supervisors to help push the want to get a demo, to get a? And I'm sure you've gotten those calls.
Speaker 2:Oh, all the time we get them. Like, we get them all the time and it's just like, um, we're very fortunate that, like we solve a lot of problems for a department, like, when we start to, we start to ask the simple questions like how difficult is it for you to do your job on a daily basis? Like, how many times do you find that you really need information that's really difficult for you to find right? How many times do you like, do you wish, like, after you were at a call, you had this information before you walked into a call.
Speaker 2:And then we show them, like, how easy it is to pull that information, to make it like operationally useful and like, and one of the things again, like I really appreciate is, like you know, depending upon what kind of user you are, like you know, you can pull data very quickly, whether it's from a mobile data terminal, whether it's from a smartphone app.
Speaker 2:So, like we make it so it's easy to use for your particular role. And so then, like, once we start to show them all those things, you know they understand, like, what, like what we can do for them. Like we armed them with that information, they see and go back and like look this these folks can help us solve this problem that every one of our officers has every day. We can cut, you know, 30% of the time we spend trying to pull information, to do a report or to follow up on an investigation. That is real value for a department. Like that's now. Like we're talking about freeing up resources so they can be more effective, they can be more proactive, they can spend more time in the community.
Speaker 1:Like that's really what we're focused on. Yeah, now I like to be fair and balanced. So in the fair and balanced part of that and I know you'll be honest, you guys have competitors now that have come to the forefront. That didn't exist when I first found you guys. Right, when I first found you, you were the only one of your guys' kind, sure, and so that was what made me so interested. But time has caught on. Competitors have come out. What set you apart?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so thanks for that, eric.
Speaker 2:And so, like, and again, like you're not going to ever hear me talk bad about another vendor, it's just not what we're about Like we will stand on our own capabilities.
Speaker 2:I think, like, if you look at how the company is built to this day, like the vast majority of our headcount of people working at Peregrine, we still staff with really top-level engineering talent.
Speaker 2:Like we have like like a good portion of our company I don't have the percentages, you know off the top of my head, but still a very good portion of our company is some of the best and brightest engineering talent in the market, and these are folks that have worked in many, many companies, you know, in the tech space. And then they, they come to us and we give them a really them a mission that they can buy into, like really helping to make their community a safer place, and so we attract this top-level engineering talent that allows us to do things that, quite frankly, some other companies just can't do. We have some incredibly talented engineers that enable us to turn around, feature changes or build new capabilities or to do things with the platform that other folks just can't do, and so, like, we're always happy to go like call us both into a room, ask us the same question, see how we both of us respond.
Speaker 2:I think we used to call that the Pepsi challenge when back in my day I'm a little older and I'm happy to take the Pepsi challenge any day and like just nothing, nothing derogatory to say about those other, those other companies out there. Just put a side by side and let the customer make the decision I like it.
Speaker 1:I like it. Got anything for him Banning?
Speaker 3:No, I've been. You know, I was introduced to Peregrine from Eric and I started doing my own research on it, and this was while I was still a law enforcement officer.
Speaker 3:Yeah research on it, and and this is while I was still a law enforcement officer yeah and uh, I didn't. I didn't work for the largest agency out there that didn't really have the ability to get anything, let alone something on the magnitude of peregrine, and I pushed for it was quickly shot down, not because of peregrine or where the abilities was. They didn't have any latitude yeah, at all at for that year and uh, but doing more research into it, I still can't wait to see it function in front of me somewhere, because Eric has kind of dissected it to me and, wow, what an amazing company to work for.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 3:It sounds awesome.
Speaker 2:We like working with other. We partner with software companies all the time. It's up to the agency, right? You want the agency to get the most value out of their technology investment, so we work with pretty much every technology company under the sun to partner with them so that the agency gets the most bang for their buck.
Speaker 1:Yes, that is my biggest draw to all the companies that people will hear me push. The reason I push them is because of the teamwork, the integration. You're never going to become rich I say this loosely You're never going to become rich by just trying to be proprietary and going into the government. Right.
Speaker 1:Like it doesn't work because this police agency has this stuff going on over here, whether it's Axon body cameras, and then over here they got WatchGuard body cameras. They don't, they don't. They got to work together. They got to be able to work together when they're out in the field. So that's what I look for. You got companies like First 2. I like giving them shout outs all the time because First 2 integrates with everybody. Peregrine will integrate with anybody. Axon I think.
Speaker 1:I'm not as familiar. I'm heavily into using Axon. I got their body cam, their taser dash cams Like I just LPR. I think we're getting their LPR. I'm not 100% sure on that, to be honest. But they integrate Right and that's what we need, because us as civilians and as citizens, taxpayers, we can't afford to be put against the wall, so to speak, with something that's proprietary. Now we're stuck. We get Nike shoes, nike shirts, nike, whatever, and that's all we can get because they won't mix and match with anything else at our department. We're screwed. Now we're stuck with Nike the whole time. There may be some better stuff out there.
Speaker 2:I think, in this day and age, the idea that one vendor can solve all of your problems, like hopefully we're past that, Like I mean, like there's just so much the pace of innovation is just staggering in 2025. Like, and there are so many great companies out there doing great things to help, you know, support, public safety Like we shouldn't bar entry to that.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:We need to get past that thought process that one company can do it all for us as a law enforcement agency.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hate the term single pane of glass. Oh my God, you want to alienate me really quick. Say single pane of glass. That drives me insane. It does not work in law enforcement. We have too many different moving parts going on. You know the way I like pointing it out to people is guess what we have for cars. Where I'm at, we've got Tahos, we got Ford Explorers, we got Chargers. Like we have variety. Variety is the spice of life. Variety is the same in policing. You got to have all these things. They got to be able to talk to each other. They got to be able to work together each other, they got to be able to work together. And that is just. That is the difference between private sector for citizens and the government. Right, the government's got to be able to work together because we're not out at for, we're not in it for profit, we're in it to get a job done right and that's serve the community, service community, absolutely so. Um, sir, have I missed anything that you knew you wanted to get out there today?
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't think you missed anything, but, like what I, what I will say is that, um one, I just, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here.
Speaker 2:I can't tell you how happy and proud I am to be here and spend a little time with you. Um, I also want to just want to kind of note that like the thing that I really love about my life now, now that I've transitioned out of law enforcement and I'm into the private sector, I think like the thing that I love the most that I get to do is like I get to spend my day, every day, with cops, right.
Speaker 2:My brothers and sisters in law enforcement. I don't get to put on a uniform every. I don't get to put on a uniform anymore. Um, I don't get to go out and do that type of work anymore. But I get to spend my day with cops and that's you know. I get to help, actually help make their lives better. I believe in what we're doing and I truly believe in my core that we help them do their jobs better, and that is just so incredibly fulfilling for me now that I'm no longer in law enforcement.
Speaker 1:I like it, I like it and I like it, I like it and I like what you've got going on right now. Again, everything with me is about balance and with what you're doing, you're able to provide balance for the citizens and balance for the police department with checks and balances, even though that's not its primary function. It's just nice to know that that exists and that makes me happy.
Speaker 2:So I'd love to come back in the future, and next time I'll bring my bagpipes.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So you know we didn't get to talk about this, but like one of the coolest things I ever got to do with state police was, I joined the pipes and drums of the blue and gold.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And got to play. Got to play with that fine organization. So next time I need to come on, we'll save it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my bagpipes.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah, and the sound of a bagpipe is amazing. Oh yeah. Absolutely amazing. I didn't know that about you. That's awesome man, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1:I could see you being a big bass drum guy.
Speaker 3:I could just be the bag on the pipe. There you go, yeah shoot.
Speaker 1:Maybe we could get like a little fireside chat. We'll get the pipes out there. You got the fireplace right there, let's do that next time. That'd be fun, heck, yeah. Well, everybody, thanks for joining us. Lenny, thank you for coming out, appreciate it. Sir Banning, not bad for our first time doing it. Huh, not bad at all. We got some fixes to do. I've seen already, but we'll.
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